


chasing fireflies

by copperwings



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Building a relationship, Demisexuality, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hand Jobs, M/M, Otabek is 19, Sensory Overload, Strangers to Lovers, Yuri doesn't relate to people well, Yuri is 17, autism spectrum-ish, demisexual Yuri, first time sexual encounters, neuro-atypical Yuri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-11-30 10:52:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11462076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperwings/pseuds/copperwings
Summary: Yuri has never been good with social interactions or with people in general. But there is a staring contest with Mila’s former classmate Otabek in a dingy diner at 2 AM, and then all of a sudden this Otabek guy wants to hang out with him… Motorcycle rides, sticky watermelon kisses and summer shenanigans ensue, and they spend the summer building their relationship while Yuri tries to come to terms with the fact that he just doesn’t fit into the norms of society.Or: the fic in which Yuri is neuroatypical and a demisexual, and Otabek is just generally awesome and endlessly patient.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> Basically all dialogue between Russian-speaking people that’s _italicized_ means they’re speaking Russian. In this fic, Yuri and Mila are Russian-English bilinguals so when they speak to each other in italics it means they’re speaking Russian (they’re of Russian descent so their home language is Russian but they went through the American schooling system in English). They mix up their languages in a way I as a multilingual person do in my RL settings, so if you wanna fight me on it being unrealistic, I invite you to follow me in my daily life for 24 hours and then we can talk. 
> 
> Also I present to you neuro-atypical Yuri. I wouldn’t downright say he’s on the autism spectrum (he wouldn’t be diagnosed because he lacks certain criteria required for diagnosis) but he definitely struggles with human interaction despite being very school-smart, and his reactions to external stimuli are atypical. He is also a demisexual. Please note that it is not my intention to offend or hurt anyone with this. If I have written something that’s incorrect of hurtful or offensively stereotypical, please, _please_ let me know so I can fix it. I just wanted to bring some representation to people who feel like they don’t quite fit in and I hope I didn’t make a mess of it.
> 
> At the beginning of the fic Yuri is 17 and Otabek is 19 and they will engage in sexual acts in the fic. If this squicks you out, I suggest you click yourself out of this fic now.

Yuri stares at the flickering neon sign as the car rolls closer to the diner across the parking lot.

“ _Otabek’s a friend from high school. Hope you don’t mind him joining us?_ ” Mila asks in Russian when she parks her rickety old car in front of the diner and glances at her phone. Yuri folds himself out of the car and shrugs at Mila over the roof when she gets out, phone in hand.

“ _Yura_?” Mila tries again. “ _Is it okay?_ ”

“I don’t care,” Yuri replies in English. He checks instagram on reflex and then pushes his phone into his pocket as they pace to the doors. The guy must be slightly weird to agree to meet them at this hour, though.

“I haven’t seen him in a long time.” Mila switches to English as well. She’s walking towards the doors, side-stepping and doing a little skip on the asphalt.

“You graduated less than ten months ago, _baba_ ,” Yuri points out. “It’s not like it’s been years.”

Mila waves her hand dismissively. “Anyway. He texted me like three hours ago, asking what’s up, so I said he could join us.” She pushes a strand of hair behind her ear. “ _Does my hair look okay?_ ”

“ _Why does your hair matter? Is he like the love of your life or something?_ ” Yuri scoffs and rolls his eyes.

There is a definite blush on Mila’s cheeks as she tells him to shut up and then mockingly holds the door open for Yuri to walk in.

Yuri walks through the door and pushes his hands into his hoodie pockets when an overly chipper waitress comes to welcome them. The diner is pretty deserted, and they choose a table beside the window. Yuri glances out of the window at the mostly empty parking lot that stretches out into darkness. It’s the middle of the night, and the fluorescent yellow lights of the 24-hour diner are harsh. They make the gleam in Mila’s red hair seem almost orange.

There’s not a lot of traffic at this hour, so Yuri hears the sound even through the window before he sees the bike. He cranes his neck and watches as a motorcycle glides across the parking spaces that are painted in neat rows on the asphalt.

“ _I bet that’s Otabek_ ,” Mila says, leaning over the table to see better. “He said he has a bike these days.” She does this thing when she pulls the hair forward from behind her ear and then pushes it back again, which means she’s nervous, or anticipating something.

There is a row of streetlights that light the parking lot. Yuri watches as the bike comes to a stop beside the one closest to the door and the guy straddling the bike gets off, pulling off the black helmet and hanging it off one of the handles. _That’s a way to get your helmet stolen_ , Yuri thinks. _And your gloves_ , he adds when he sees the guy pushing his gloves inside the helmet. Although maybe there aren’t that many people around to steal shit right now.

He sees the guy properly only as he walks over to the door and the light hanging above it illuminates him. Black jeans, black leather jacket and dark hair in a hairstyle that’s longer at the crown of the head but buzzed short at the sides and back. Then he is hidden from sight as he walks into the building, only to reemerge a moment later as he walks over to their table.

Mila gets up, excited. “Otabek!” she squeals and hugs him like they haven’t seen each other in decades. “So good to see you.”

Otabek pats her on the back for a couple of times and then disentangles himself. He holds a hand out to Yuri while Mila gushes something about the bike, about high school and something else Yuri doesn’t really hear but probably doesn’t care to hear either.

“Otabek Altin,” Otabek says.

Yuri takes the offered hand and shakes it without getting up from his seat. “Yuri,” he says. “Plisetsky,” he adds as an afterthought. The handshake is firm and Otabek’s fingers feel warm. His eyes are dark and serious.

Mila has scooted closer to the window to make room for Otabek. “Come, sit.” She pats the seat beside her. Otabek takes off his leather jacket and hangs it on the hook on the wall behind him. His shirt underneath is dark gray and very tight.

“Do you always come here at two AM?” Otabek asks as he sits himself down directly across from Yuri.

Mila laughs good-humoredly. “Sometimes.”

“What about you, do you always drive your motorcycle to dingy diners at two AM?” Yuri asks challengingly.

“Only when I’m asked to,” Otabek says, but he seems amused.

Mila grins. “It’s a tradition Yuri and I have. Every now and then we pull an all-nighter when we come here at an ungodly time to eat and then hang out in my parents’ basement until one of us falls asleep.”

Yuri tugs at the strings of his hood to make them fall evenly on both sides of the zipper. Mila makes it sound like they’re _dating_ or something. “I’ve lived next door all my life,” Yuri says with a shrug. Mila’s always just sort of been _there_.

“Yuri’s like the brother next door to me. Same neighborhood, different school,” Mila continues. “I used to babysit Yuri when he was ten and I was twelve.”

“For the record, I did not _need_ a babysitter when I was ten,” Yuri says, glaring at Mila.

Mila shrugs. “No, but it’s the state law. Your Gramps had to get you a babysitter because you were under twelve.”

“Anyway,” Yuri says, turning to Otabek. “We hang out in her basement at night because her parents don’t mind and she has like _all_ the video games.”

“Also a possibility of a blanket fort,” Mila supplies.

Yuri sighs. She really makes it impossible for him to seem even remotely cool.

Otabek gives a solemn nod. “I see.”

Yuri could swear that beneath that expressionless surface Otabek is laughing at both of them.

 “So anyway, enough of us blabbing about our childhood,” Mila says with a wave of her hand. “What’s up with you these days, Beka?”

Otabek shrugs. “College, mostly. I spend the weeks on campus and weekends at home. And I’ll be here for the summer, too. Got a job at a mechanic’s shop in the Hills.”

“Oh, that’s so cool. I’ll come visit you at the shop in the summer, then,” Mila says and lowers a hand on Otabek’s arm.

Yuri groans inwardly. Could Mila get any more obvious?

His eyes meet Otabek’s over the table, and there seems to be something on Otabek’s face that could be classified as a smile.

The waitress comes over and gets their orders. Even after doing this multiple times ever since Mila got her license almost three years ago, Yuri still finds it amusing to order breakfast food in the darkest hour of the night. “I’ll have the breakfast special,” he says without even looking at the menu.

“You _always_ have the breakfast special,” Mila says. “Live a little. Try something new.”

Otabek glances at his menu. “I’ll have the breakfast special, too.”

Mila looks at him dramatically. “Et tu, Brute?”

Otabek raises an eyebrow, but he’s looking directly at Yuri. Yuri grins at Mila.

When the food arrives, Yuri eats most of the bacon and eggs and some of the pancakes. When he’s full, he hacks his hash browns into mush with his fork and sculpts it into a smiley face.

Mila sighs, but she’s grinning so she’s not really frustrated. “Yuri, are you five?” She turns to look at Otabek and rolls her eyes. “It’s hard to believe he’s only two years younger than us, you know.”

Yuri pokes his tongue out at Mila. “Shut it, hag.”

Mila gives Otabek an exasperated look that says: _see, this is what I have to deal with_.

“Remind me again, _why_ am I friends with you?” Mila mutters.

“Because I’m awesome,” Yuri states matter-of-factly.

“And so modest,” Mila retorts.

Yuri raises his eyebrows and grins.

Then Mila turns to Otabek and says something about a classmate from high school, and they launch into full-on memory lane mode all of a sudden. Yuri sighs. Apparently it’s obligatory to be sentimental about shit that happened less than a year ago, because it was _high school_. Yuri doubts he’ll ever get so sentimental about high school or his classmates. Once he gets out of there he has zero intention of seeing any of those losers ever again.

Yuri pokes his remaining pancakes full of holes with his fork and listens to Mila and Otabek reminiscing about high school. “Oh! And do you remember that time, when Leo tried to cheat in the math test by writing the equations he needed on a piece of paper? Then he attached it to the ceiling right behind the light so it wasn’t visible from the teacher’s desk.” Mila laughs. “After some time the teacher said he didn’t believe Leo was looking for answers from God and came to see what was going on.”

Otabek chuckles. “Yeah. Or that time when Emil made a bet with JJ that he could get the physics teacher to say _‘butt plug’_.”

Mila laughs. “Yeah, although she didn’t really say it, she said a sentence that had _‘but plug it in and this or that’_ or something like along those lines.”

“ _’But plug it in and see if it works now’_ ,” Otabek quotes. “I think it was when we were doing conduction.”

“Oh, right, that was it!” Mila snaps her fingers. “Oh, and then that one time when JJ challenged you to a staring contest and then kept changing it from two-out-of-three to three-out-of-five and so on because he kept losing.”

Yuri drops his fork on the plate with a clang. “A staring contest? Really, how _lame_ were your school years?”

So naturally, within a few minutes of stating that, Yuri finds himself agreeing to a staring contest with this random guy who went to high school with Mila. And not only just any staring contest, but one that takes place in a crappy 24-hour diner off the highway, in the darkest hour right before the skyline of the city in the distance illuminates in a pink glow. What has his life become?

“Fine, let’s do this.” Yuri sighs.

“You can make faces but no touching and no talking,” Mila says. She looks giddy for some reason. “The first one to blink or laugh loses.”

Yuri rolls his eyes and then locks his gaze with Otabek’s across the table. Otabek’s response is a pair of steady eyes trained on Yuri, and neither of them says anything to officially begin the contest. They just fall into the stare without any preamble.

“I’m telling you, Yura, you’re going to lose,” Mila says in a matter-of-fact tone.

Yuri pokes his tongue out at her from the corner of his mouth without taking his eyes off his target.

Otabek’s gaze is unwavering. His eyes are deep brown and his face just as expressionless as before. He’s not trying the usual tricks of making faces or crossing his eyes. He just keeps staring like he could do this all night. Yuri stares back, and momentarily there is nothing else in the world but staring into a pair of dark eyes. Otabek’s eyes are serious, but again Yuri can sense his amusement beneath the surface.

Yuri can feel his eyes itch as his corneas beg him to release them from their torture and just _blink_. Yuri ignores the feeling of sandpaper and the entire Sahara Desert in his eyes and continues staring.

The change is subtle when it happens. Otabek raises one eyebrow almost comically slowly, and his expression changes into one so incredulous and sour that it should be able to curdle the single-serving coffee creamers on their table. Yuri has to bite the inside of his lip to keep from laughing. There is _no way_ he is going to lose to some rando who Mila had a crush on in high school. Or still has a crush on, whatever.

“I’m just saying,” Mila continues, sounding almost bored. “No one’s ever beaten Otabek in a staring contest.”

 _There is always a first time for everything_ , Yuri thinks as he flips Mila off haphazardly without looking.

Suddenly, Otabek licks across his lower lip in a pink flick of tongue. The movement is slow, deliberate, almost seductive; and Yuri blinks, startled. Otabek’s expression returns to its previous solemn state in a microsecond, and he taps his finger on the tabletop. “You blinked,” he says in an even tone.

Yuri glares at him. “That doesn’t count. You’re not playing fair!” he sputters.

“I didn’t touch you or talk to you,” Otabek points out. “Those are the only rules.”

Mila looks pleased. “Told you,” she says, directing her mocking words at Yuri. Then she holds her hand up to Otabek, who slaps his palm against it in high five. “Still the reigning champion, Beka.”

“Whatever,” Yuri mutters and sips from his glass.

 

~

 

They drive back to Mila’s house when it’s already getting lighter. Yuri sits on the front seat next to Mila and glances back every now and then to see if the motorcycle is still following. He cranes his neck and almost gets a neck cramp. There is something soothing in watching a motorcycle roll over the smooth asphalt in the gray haze of night being chased away by morning.

When Yuri gets out of the car in front of Mila’s house, the bike is gone from behind them.

“Where did he go?” Yuri asks, and Mila shrugs. They stand in the driveway, shivering in the cool night. Yuri glances at the windows of their house next door, but as expected, Gramps is already asleep and there isn’t a single light on.

Soon a lone figure in a black leather jacket emerges, walking up the sidewalk.

“Parked the bike a bit down the street,” Otabek says as he paces up to them. “Not all people like a bike revving in their driveway at four AM.”

“How thoughtful,” Mila beams. They go in through the garage and into the basement.

It’s just as messy as it was the previous time Yuri was there. There’s DVD covers, old comics, Mila’s father’s record player and a shelf full of old LPs.

Otabek walks over to the LP shelf.

“We can’t listen to any right now,” Mila says apologetically. “My parents don’t mind us being here but we have to try to keep relatively quiet.”

“I just want to see what’s in here,” Otabek says.

Yuri walks over. “You like music?”

Mila scoffs. “Who _doesn’t_ like music?”

“My mother,” Otabek replies and pulls a record out of the shelf. “She says she prefers silence.”

“That’s kind of weird,” Mila observes.

Sometimes Yuri prefers silence as well, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Anyway. Can we play videogames?” Yuri asks.

Mila’s basement has game consoles spanning over two decades, because her parents are huge nerds. They play Mario Kart on mute, since playing anything that has something resembling a storyline on mute is kind of pointless. Otabek hangs back as they play and goes over some of the comics scattered here and there in the room. Yuri follows him from the corner of his eye. Otabek moves around the room and picks up something, looks at it and then carefully places it back where he took it.

“So how long do you still have classes for?” Mila asks Otabek between games.

“Three weeks,” Otabek replies. “Then I’m back for summer.”

“Cool,” Mila says.

Yuri realizes he’s getting tired, because he keeps crashing into stuff he didn’t mean to crash into. Mila laughs at him. “Oh look, tiny baby is all tired.”

“Fuck off, hag,” Yuri says without much bite.

Otabek is sitting on the couch behind where Yuri is sitting on the floor and leaning on the couch. Yuri can feel the vibrations from the couch whenever Otabek shifts. “I should probably head home,” Otabek says and stifles a yawn. “I have stuff to do tomorrow before I drive out for the week again.”

Yuri drops the controller even though they’re mid-game. His character drives off-route and crashes into a wall. “I’m gonna go home too. I prefer my own bed to a neck cramp.” He’s gotten cramps in all parts of his body thanks to sleeping on Mila’s basement couch.

Mila puts her controller down in a gentler manner. “Awesome that you came to hang out with us,” Mila says to Otabek. “Despite the hour not being the most conventional.”

“Yeah, sure.” Otabek glances at Yuri. “It was good to meet you, Yuri. I’ll see you around.”

“Next time I’ll beat you in a staring contest,” Yuri says confidently.

There is a slight smile on Otabek’s face. “We’ll see about that.”

Yuri waits until Otabek has left and then he hugs Mila goodnight. “See you, hag.”

“See you, squirt.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Don’t call me _hag_ , then.” Mila pats his head condescendingly.

Yuri grumbles under his breath and waves his hand goodbye as he slinks through the garage and crosses the lawn to his house. He climbs in through the basement window he’s left unlocked and makes his way through the quiet house. Gramps is a heavy sleeper but Yuri still avoids making any noise as he climbs upstairs and into his room.

Yuri stares at himself in the mirror as he brushes his teeth. His hair is getting longer. Long enough to tie back. Yuri holds the toothbrush in his mouth as he tests it out, pulling the hair back to the nape of his neck. A few strands hang loose around his face, but other than that it’s long enough to go into a ponytail.

Birds are starting their morning serenade outside the window, and the world is bathing in the golden light of the morning when he finally slumps into his bed and falls asleep.

 

~

 

Next morning the wake-up call comes a few hours too early. Yuri is usually a morning person, but after staying up until six in the morning he’d prefer a few more hours of sleep.

Unfortunately, his grandfather wants him to run errands. And apparently those errands need to be run at ten-thirty in the morning, so Yuri drags down the stairs and into the kitchen to pour himself a mug of coffee so he can manage to open his eyes properly.

As he sips the coffee he checks his instagram. Usually there are a few new likes whenever he’s posted a new photo, but now there’s a new follower, too.

 **_otabek-altin_ ** _started following you. 2h_

Yuri taps on the name and is rewarded with the text that lets him know that this profile is private and he needs to request to follow. He taps his finger on _follow_ and then puts away the phone and sips his coffee faster as he hears Gramps coming downstairs.

 

~

 

Yuri has all but forgotten about sending a follow-request when his phone notifies him four days later at dinner that his request is accepted. Apparently Otabek doesn’t spend too much time on his instagram account.

Yuri skims lazily over the pictures. There aren’t that many of them and most of them are about something else than Otabek himself.

He’s about to put the phone away when it dings another notification; this time it’s from his instagram inbox.

_> >hey, wanna hang out some day?_

Yuri stares at the message from **otabek-altin**. Why would Mila’s high school classmate want to hang out with him?

 _< <sure_, he types in reply after a moment’s hesitation. _When?_

_> >tomorrow? I can pick you up with my bike_

Yuri is about to ask how Otabek knows where he lives, but then he remembers Otabek has been at Mila’s and knows Yuri lives next door. It’s not that difficult to check the two houses around Mila’s to see which mailbox reads Plisetsky.

_< <okay what time?_

_> >six okay?_

_< <works for me._

_> >see you then_

 

“ _Yura. What have I said about phones at dinner table_?” Gramps scolds him.

“ _Da. Sorry_ ,” Yuri mutters. He puts the phone away and spoons stew into his mouth thoughtfully.

He wonders what Mila would think if she knew Yuri is going to hang out with Otabek without her. Not that Mila _owns_ Otabek or anything, but he was her friend first. Yuri wonders if this is considered him stealing Mila’s friend. But then again, it would be weird to text Mila to ask for permission to hang out with Otabek. And it’s not like Mila and Otabek are super close or anything. After all, before the diner they hadn’t seen each other since graduation almost a year ago.

Yuri decides not to text Mila about it.

He goes to school the next day and time seems to move slowly. He completes the menial tasks handed to them in class without much thought and answers questions only if they’re directed at him.

Yuri is looking forward to getting to ride on a motorcycle, but he doesn’t know what he has in common with Otabek, if anything. What is there to talk about? Well, Otabek said he likes music, so there’s that. And movies and shit. Yuri wrinkles his brow. He can probably just talk about anything he usually discusses with Mila. It can’t be that different.

It would be helpful sometimes if he cared more about interacting with people. But Yuri rarely meets anyone he wants to interact with. Mila calls it his _selective misanthropy_. Yuri doesn’t hate people, though. Mostly it just seems they’re talking in a frequency he doesn’t quite grasp. Like he’s an old-fashioned radio that’s just slightly out of tune so he’s not on the same channel as everyone else. Mila is used to it, because she’s always been around, but everyone else he meets just seems to want to _fix_ him.

Yuri isn’t a fucking piece of hardware that needs to be fixed, though. He just wants people to _get_ him, the way they all seem to get each other. But no one ever does.

When he gets home from school he makes dinner and does the dishes. Then he goes into his room to do homework. Homework is quickly done, though, so he’s left with a lot of time to lounge around after he’s finished.

When the clock on the wall inches towards six, Yuri pushes open his window and watches the cars passing. It’s quiet in the suburb, so like on the first time he _hears_ Otabek’s bike before he sees it.

Yuri closes the window with a bang and pulls on a hoodie. After thinking about it for a second he adds a jacket. It might get cold during the drive.

“ _I’m going out with a friend_ ,” Yuri shouts into the living room.

“ _What friend?_ ” Gramps shouts back.

“Otabek,” Yuri replies, slamming the front door shut before Gramps has time to ask stupid questions like _who’s Otabek_?

Otabek is turning the bike around in the driveway. Yuri looks at the bike. It’s all sleek lines and a promise of speed, and he bounces to where Otabek is now stopped, balancing the bike with his feet on the ground. Otabek has an extra helmet that he’s carrying on his arm, with the visor pushed up so his arm goes through the helmet. Otabek leans back and shrugs the helmet off his arm, handing it to Yuri.

Yuri pulls the helmet on. It’s tight around his ears and makes his head feel heavy, like he’s one of those bobble-heads with their heads lolling here and there on a thin stick of a neck. Yuri clips the helmet under his chin. Otabek gives him a one-handed thumbs-up and pushes his own visor up.

“Do you know how to mount a bike?” Otabek asks.

Yuri shakes his head, and with the added weight of the helmet the movement feels like there is too much gravity attacking his head.

“Put your left foot on that metal spike there.” Otabek points at a footrest on the left side of the bike behind him. “It will hold your weight. Grab my shoulder for support, then push up and hoist your other leg over the bike. There’s another one of those on the other side for your foot.”

The series of movements is clumsy, but Yuri manages to climb on the bike. The bike sways when he pushes off the ground, but Otabek has his feet planted firmly on the asphalt of the driveway and he brings the bike back to balance.

Once Yuri is sitting on the bike flush against Otabek’s back, he’s not sure what to do with his hands. Is he supposed to hold on to Otabek or what?

Otabek turns to look at him. “Comfy?”

“Not really,” Yuri says.

“You might wanna zip up your jacket all the way. It’s gonna get breezy,” Otabek says, and Yuri complies, pulling the zipper up to his jaw. “You can hold onto those handles back there if you like, but personally I find it difficult, because it feels like the bike tries to throw you off every time I accelerate because your mass is fighting gravity alone. You know, inertia and acceleration and whatnot.”

Yuri knows. He’s taking AP physics and he’s not stupid.

“You can put your arms around my waist if you want to, it’s a lot easier.” Otabek turns to face forward and closes his visor with a sharp snap.

Yuri closes the visor of his own helmet and bites the inside of his lip. After a momentary consideration he inches his arms around Otabek’s waist and grabs his own wrist over Otabek’s abdomen to keep his hands in place. Otabek shows him a one-handed thumbs-up again and Yuri grins at him through the small circular mirror extending off the handle. Otabek rolls the bike slowly off the driveway and onto the street.

A second later Yuri is glad he chose to hold onto Otabek, because once the bike accelerates down the street he can feel gravity pulling him backwards. Or gravity and inertia, like Otabek said. His body is on a bike that accelerates forward while inertia tries to hold him still and gravity tries to resist his movements.

Yuri smiles at the thought inside the helmet. Like inertia and gravity were living beings holding him back.

It’s an exhilarating feeling to have the wind tear at his clothes as they speed across the suburb. At first it feels odd to follow the sideways lean of the bike in curves—as if the bike is going to topple over any second—but soon Yuri finds himself relaxing and enjoying the movement of the motorcycle beneath him. It’s a whole different world than driving a car.

When Otabek takes them on the highway, it gets even more exciting. The wind gushes around them and tries to pry Yuri off Otabek’s back. He clings more tightly and presses against the leather of Otabek’s jacket.

He wonders where Otabek is taking him.

He also wonders if he’s still going to have all his fingers when they get there, because he doesn’t have any gloves on.

Otabek navigates the bike across the lanes and takes an exit off the highway. They’re closing in on the city now, and Yuri doesn’t know this area well. Eventually they pull into a coffee shop parking lot and Otabek brings the bike to a stop and lowers both feet on the ground. He walks the bike a bit forward in the parking space, then snaps the visor up and glances at Yuri. “You can climb off now.”

Yuri dismounts the bike with some difficulty. His legs feel cramped after the ride even though it wasn’t that long. He fumbles with the fastening of the helmet and finally manages to snap it open despite his fingers being numb. Otabek dismounts the bike in one fluid motion and kicks the stand out.

Otabek takes the helmet Yuri offers him and hangs it off the handlebar. He pulls off his own helmet and puts it on the other side.

Otabek watches as Yuri cups his hands in front of his face and blows into his fingers. “Yeah, I forgot to tell you to bring gloves,” Otabek says apologetically. “Remember those next time.”

Yuri shrugs. So is this going to be a regular occurrence now? Him riding Otabek’s motorcycle?

Otabek takes off his own gloves and offers them to Yuri.

Yuri takes the leather gloves and puts them on without a second’s hesitation. They’re slightly big for him, and they’re warm in the wake of Otabek’s hands. Yuri clenches his fingers inside the gloves, feeling the warmth as they pace toward the coffee shop doors.

They buy lattes and sit close to the window where they can see the bike. “I have a compartment for the helmets but I haven’t gotten around to attaching it to the bike,” Otabek explains as they sit and sip their coffees. “I’ve been building another project pretty much from scraps and I’ve wanted to finish it but it’s slow going since I’m only here on the weekends.”

“You know a lot about motorcycles,” Yuri says, and it isn’t really a question.

Otabek nods nonetheless. “I’ve been building bikes since I was eleven,” he replies. “And now I’m studying engineering in college.”

“That’s cool,” Yuri says, because that’s what you’re supposed to say to people when they tell you about themselves.

“What about you? What do you wanna study in college?” Otabek tilts his head.

Yuri purses his lips. “I don’t know.”

He hears it from his teachers a lot, that he is smart and can do anything he wants to. And Yuri guesses he is, because to him high school is not a struggle in the sense it seems to be for everyone else. It’s a walk in a park, leisurely strolling along and collecting A+ grades like they’re flowers. His classmates complain about homework being difficult and taking a lot of time. Yuri flashes through his homework without a second thought. It’s never been difficult to understand letters and numbers.

People, on the other hand, are much more difficult.

Yuri sees the social norms and the set rules of behavior people have constructed, and mostly he conforms to them. But he doesn’t understand them. Others seem to have a natural ability to adjust their behavior to a given situation, but Yuri has to put conscious effort to learn to do the same.

People are more complex than the most difficult math equation; equations are logical, whereas the whirlwind of social norms surrounding everyday situations seems to defy all logic. Compared to people, homework is fucking easy.

“Maybe psychology?” Yuri asks with a shrug.

Otabek tilts his head. “Why, though?”

Yuri startles. “What do you mean, why?” This isn’t what he’s used to. People usually just nod and make noises that can be interpreted as acknowledging or approving. But Otabek wants to know more.

“Are you interested in psychology?” Otabek asks.

“I guess,” Yuri shrugs. “Humans are weird.”

Otabek laughs softly. “That they are.”

“I’d like to understand it better. Humans, I mean,” Yuri explains further.

“Hmm.” Otabek hums under his breath. “Most humans are fairly simple, though.”

“Sure,” Yuri says, but his voice betrays him. “I mean, I guess,” he amends.

Otabek hums under his breath. “Humans operate within the basic need-fulfilment model. They want something; they act in a way that grants them that _something_.”

Yuri wishes it was that easy. But he isn’t going to sit here and explain to Mila’s former high school classmate that seeing people’s needs and how their actions lead to them fulfilling them is not that easy in everyday life. On paper he gets it, but it’s completely different when he’s actually in a situation.

“Are you saying that people never do anything without an ulterior motive?” Yuri asks, squinting at Otabek.

Otabek sighs. “Well, at the basic level that’s pretty much it. Say, you want food. You go through the actions you need to go through in order to get food.”

Yuri contemplates it for a while and nods. “Okay.”

“And usually people’s needs are pretty basic. Need to sleep. Need to eat. Need to have sex. Need to feel like you’re a part of a group; accepted—“

“How is that simple, though?” Yuri interrupts.

“Well, you behave in a certain way to get people to like you, right?” Otabek sips his latte.

Yuri lets out a noncommittal noise that he hopes sounds nonchalant.

Otabek apparently takes the noise at face value, because he nods and continues, “And that’s what everyone does. They might behave differently depending on the culture and situation they’re in, but the basic need behind the behavior is the same.”

Yuri stares at Otabek. But that’s just _it_. How can there be any logic to human behavior when different people can behave in a multitude of ways to try to get to the same goals?

Numbers are way easier. They at least always stay the same even when thrown into a different equation. Numbers are reliable. People are not.

“But how is it helpful to know the basic need behind the behavior if the behavior is just all over the place?” Yuri mutters and sloshes his latte around in the mug. “Besides, I thought you studied engineering, not psychology.”

The corners of Otabek’s mouth lift just a little, forming an amused semi-smile. “It makes it easier to understand. Like, if you think about why someone just behaved in a certain way, if you can figure out the basic need behind it you can break the behavior into smaller components. Then if you put those components back together, you can see the whole picture.” Otabek tilts his head and his eyes are locked on Yuri. “It’s like building an engine. If you look at an engine when it’s all built, you can’t decipher all the small components in it. But if you break it apart and study the components separately, you begin to understand how the engine is built and how it works; then you can put it back together again.”

“Here comes the engineering side, then,” Yuri muses, snorting.

Otabek shrugs and grins. “I suppose.”

Yuri lifts one eyebrow. “But people are not like engines, though. They don’t all have the same components, and they’re not built the same. Like you said, people can behave differently in a same situation because of their backgrounds. It’s unreliable.” Yuri pokes his finger through the ear of his coffee mug and traces around the smooth oval hole it forms.

“Not all engines are built the same, either,” Otabek remarks. “But if you study enough of them, you begin to see the similarities. And once you see the similarities, you can draw conclusions.”

 “Uh-huh,” Yuri says.

The way Otabek puts it makes it sound more decipherable, though. Yuri thinks about it. It sounds plausible. It sounds doable, even. Yuri wonders if he should clap, because within minutes Otabek has taught him more about human behavior than any of his psychology teachers have in all of high school. He speaks in terms Yuri can relate to.

Otabek snorts through his nose and smiles as if to himself. “Like for example…if I use Mila as an example, you won’t tell her, right?”

Yuri shakes his head.

“What does she do when she’s interested in someone?” Otabek asks.

“She talks to them a lot. Touches them. Flips her hair,” Yuri lists. He’s seen it enough times to know it. “She has this… _voice_ she uses. It’s higher in pitch.”

“Yeah.” Otabek nods like he knows exactly what Yuri is talking about. “And that behavior, it pulls from the basic need of wanting to be accepted by that person she’s interested in, right?” Otabek questions.

Yuri is beginning to feel like this is psychology class all over again. “Right.”

“But someone else would do something completely different in that situation to express the same thing. Like, think about yourself. What would you do if you were interested in someone?” Otabek tilts his head.

Yuri weighs the idea in his head. He’s never really thought about it. He shrugs. “I don’t know. What about you?”

“Perhaps I’ll tell you later.” Otabek smiles and finishes his latte. Then he leans over the table and peeks into Yuri’s mug. “Are you done? We could go for a ride to this one place I know.”

Clipping the helmet fastening under his chin and mounting the bike are easier on the second try, and Yuri settles on the bike behind Otabek, wrapping his arms around Otabek’s body. He’s pulled the sleeves of his hoodie out of the jacket sleeves and tugged them around his fists, so it looks like his hands are just two stumps wrapped in cloth. He keeps his arms tightly around Otabek’s torso as they accelerate off the parking lot and down the street.

Otabek takes the southbound ramp to the highway and they drive into the darkening night. The sun is beginning to set and the lights of the city on their left are starting to blink into existence.

Yuri shivers a little and presses closer to Otabek’s back. They drive along the highway for a while and then Otabek takes an exit that brings them to a smaller road closer to the shoreline. The ocean flashes in and out of view as they drive, and the road ahead gets narrower. Eventually Otabek pulls up to a gravel path that ends in a simple gate that has a dead-end sign on it and a warning symbol of blue waves. Past the gate Yuri can see the ocean spreading out.

Yuri dismounts and hands the helmet to Otabek. He walks to the gate that’s really just a beam supported by poles at each end to prevent cars from driving past. There is a path around the side of the gate, though, and Yuri paces toward the shore. Otabek sets the motorcycle leaning on the stand and puts his own helmet away. He leaves the headlight on, though, and it shines past the gate and creates a path of light toward the water.

The tearing sea wind roams straight through Yuri’s jacket, and the bike’s headlight shining in the dark creates a false sense of heat. Yuri steps into the pool of light and watches how his shadow snakes out over the uneven gravel and small weeds, bent under the pressure of the ocean winds.

Otabek catches up with him as he nears the water. “Do you like it?” he asks.

“What is this place?” Yuri asks in return.

“Solitude.” Otabek shrugs. “Silence. The ocean. I come here a lot when I want to be alone.”

“You’re not alone now, though,” Yuri points out.

Otabek snorts through his nose and shakes his head. “No, I’m not.”

“I like it,” Yuri says thoughtfully. “It’s calming.”

It’s also freezing. Yuri jumps a little to keep the cold at bay.

“Are you cold?” Otabek asks, and when Yuri nods, he scoots so he’s between Yuri and the wind like a shield. Yuri steps closer and stares at the ocean over Otabek’s shoulder.

When Otabek drops him at home and drives off, Yuri stands and watches the bike disappear into the bend of their home street.

He glances up and sees there is a light in Mila’s window.

He wonders should he tell Mila about hanging out with Otabek. Would Mila be upset?

Yuri pulls out his phone to text Mila, but stops and backs out of the message app. What would he say, anyway? That he had coffee with Otabek and they talked about human psychology? That Otabek took him to the ocean and they stared at the cross-currents foaming as the tide rose?

Mila is Mila, so she’d probably just shrug it off, but Yuri can never be sure with people. Best not to disclose anything that might upset someone. He’s learned it the hard way that sometimes there are things people don’t want to hear, true as they may be.

If he could only figure out what those things are.

 

~

 

Yuri’s jeans scratch against the concrete floor of the garage as he changes his position into a more comfortable one. He crosses his legs under himself and leans his elbows on his knees. He studies the scene in front of him, the individual bits and pieces that are supposed to come together to form a whole. It looks pretty much exactly what it is: like a motorcycle exploded all over the floor of Otabek’s garage.

Otabek looks up from the mess that used to be a whole motorcycle but now looks like a trash pile of parts. Yuri has no idea what goes where but Otabek probably does.

“Do you wanna explain what you’re doing?” Yuri asks.

Otabek blinks. “Sure. If you’re interested.”

Yuri nods.

“There was a problem with the starter,” Otabek says. “That’s this bit here. I needed to take it apart to see if it was the low current or the high current circuit that was causing the trouble.”

Yuri wrinkles his brow. “Uh-huh.”

Otabek snorts out a little huff of laughter. “Turns out it was neither. It’s the starter motor that’s the part over there in the discard pile.” Otabek points at the part in question. “I needed to replace it. I just put the new one in and now I can put it all back together again.”

“Uh-huh,” Yuri says again. Otabek is not being very helpful right now. It’s probably because he’s so familiar with the pieces he works with that it’s impossible for him to explain them to someone who isn’t. “That doesn’t really say anything to me. Do you have like a manual for this shit?” Yuri asks.

Otabek points at a cupboard on the wall across the garage. “There. Knock yourself out.”

Yuri gets up and dusts his jeans. He saunters over to the cupboard in question and pulls the doors open.

The topmost shelf is full of motorcycle-related magazines that date years back. The second shelf below it hosts a myriad of different catalogues from engine part manufacturers. The third shelf has manuals.

Yuri pulls out a thick one that seems to have the basics covered. He flips through it until he gets to the part that reads _‘starter’_. He sits on the floor in front of the cupboard and starts reading.

When Yuri looks up the next time, he sees Otabek looming over him, wiping his hands into a towel that already has permanent grease stains on it.

“Having fun?” Otabek asks with a slight smile.

Yuri shrugs. “This is interesting,” he says. “I like learning how things go together and how they function.”

“Perhaps not psychology, then,” Otabek muses. It takes Yuri a second to realize Otabek is talking about his prospective college major. “Engineering?”

Yuri shrugs again. Engineering might be fun. But then again, so might many other things.

The door at the end of the garage opens and Otabek’s mother pokes her head into the garage. “Otabek, it’s dinnertime.” She glances at Yuri. “Your friend is welcome to stay for dinner as well.”

Yuri swallows and glances over at Otabek. “I should probably go home. Gramps is expecting me for dinner.” He looks at the floor. “Thanks, though.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Otabek says. “Be there in a minute,” he calls to his mother over his shoulder.

“Mom is bad with names,” Otabek says conversationally as they walk over to the sidewalk where Yuri parked his grandfather’s car. The car looks like it doesn’t belong here; this neighborhood is nice and the car not so much. Yuri kind of feels like he doesn’t belong here either.

“Okay?” Yuri says in reply.

“I mean, she met you just the other day, and I’ve talked about you a lot, but she still can’t remember your name.” Otabek wrinkles his brow.

“Oh,” Yuri says. “I don’t really care.”

Otabek looks at him weirdly but doesn’t say anything. Yuri wonders if that was the wrong thing to say. He rewinds his words, but there doesn’t seem to be anything amiss. Or does it make it seem like he doesn’t care about Otabek’s mother? _Should_ he care about Otabek’s mother?

“Anyway,” Yuri says. “I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah,” Otabek replies slowly. “See you, Yuri.”

“Actually, you could call me Yura?” Yuri says.

He’s known Otabek for a few weeks now. He’s never had to tell this to anyone before, because Mila and her family and Gramps have always called him Yura and there hasn’t been anyone who Yuri might have classified as a close friend. Until Otabek. “It’s a Russian thing, we use different names for close people.” It’s an extremely simplified version of name diminutives, but it’ll do for now.

Otabek nods thoughtfully. “So we’re close, huh?” He winks.

Yuri blinks. “Well, yeah.”

Otabek nods solemnly. “Okay.” He exhales. “Okay, Yura.” He says the name like he’s testing it out. It’s only a difference of one vowel sound, but Yuri still likes the way it sounds when Otabek calls him _Yura_.

As Yuri walks over to the driver’s side of the car, Otabek calls after him: “You can also call me Beka if you like.”

 _Beka_. Yuri likes how it sounds. He remembers Mila used it when they were at the diner.

“Okay,” he replies. “Beka.”

Otabek waves when Yuri rolls off the curb and sets out from the neighborhood. Yuri raises one hand so Otabek can see it through the back window of the car.

 

~

 

“So you and Otabek,” Mila says when Yuri is lying sprawled across the basement floor with a game controller in his hand.

Yuri startles and his character on the screen takes instant damage. “Me and Otabek what?” he asks as he struggles to bring the force field back up.

“You’ve been hanging with him,” Mila states, and her character on screen whacks at the enemy soldier with a sword. “I’ve seen his bike around your house. Plus, you’ve been tagging him on like everything on your insta.”

“Yeah, so?” Yuri thumbs his way through the forest and Mila follows him. “Back me up, we’ve got incoming,” he says, glancing at the map in the corner of the screen.

Mila is quiet for a moment. Yuri knows she wants to say something, but at that moment they run into an opposing team in the forest and have to concentrate on hacking their way through.

When they complete the quest and return to the main menu, Mila drops the controller.

Yuri looks at her. She looks hurt.

“ _Did I do something?_ ” Yuri asks. Mila he can at least trust to say things like they are.

“ _No, Yura_ ,” Mila says with a sigh. “ _It’s just_ —“

“ _You like him_ ,” Yuri states.

Mila sighs. “ _I guess_. _I think I’ve liked him since the first year of high school. But I never really did anything to…make it happen, you know_?”

“No, I don’t.” Yuri tries to recall liking someone, but there has never been anyone. Well, when he was fourteen there was this girl he thought he liked, but that was only until he heard her asking something really stupid in class. He couldn’t really like her anymore after that.

“Oh, right.” Mila sighs. “But you’re familiar with the concept, right?”

“Of liking someone? Of course, _baba_ , I’m not an idiot,” Yuri says and gives her a little shove on the shoulder.

Mila laughs. That’s a good sign. “I know, Yura. But anyway, you know, it’s this warm feeling whenever you see the person you like; kind of exhilarating, kind of scary. You wanna spend all your time with them. And then you wanna see them naked. Like, _a lot_.”

Yuri groans and Mila giggles.

“So do you feel like that about Otabek?” Yuri asks.

Mila purses her lips. “I thought I did. But I don’t know. Maybe I’ve just grown so accustomed to liking him from afar that I wouldn’t know what to do if someone suddenly dropped him on my lap.” Mila’s eyes gleam in amusement. “What about you?”

Yuri freezes. “What about me?”

“Do you feel like that about Otabek?”

There is a silence that stretches on.

Yuri stares at her incredulously and there is an insult at the tip of his tongue, ready to be flung at Mila. But then he stops to think about it.

Being around Otabek is nice. Otabek doesn’t expect Yuri to conform to certain social patterns. Yuri likes hanging out with him. They have fun. They have deep conversations. When Yuri thinks about seeing Otabek _naked_ , though…he looks down and lets his hair fall around his face.

“ _You like him, don’t you?_ ” Mila says softly, as if this confirms something she’s suspected.

Yuri shrugs.

So what if he does, though. It’s not like he’s going to do anything about it.

 

~

 

The city is quieter in the dead of the night, even though it’s never completely silent. The streetlights tint the world in sickly yellow hues and contrasting deep shadows where the light doesn’t reach. Despite it being almost summer, there is a chill in the air. The partially visible city skyline across the river is painted in neon hues that reach up to the night sky, obscuring the stars from view.

Yuri tugs on the sleeves of his leather jacket, trying to get them to cover his hands but the leather won’t budge and his wrists stay exposed to the cool night air; and of course his gloves are safely stuffed into his helmet where Otabek’s bike is parked near the sidewalk somewhere behind them. Yuri thinks about it for a moment. _His helmet_. As if it’s _his_ now and no one else will ever use it again, even though it’s just a spare helmet anyone can borrow if Otabek gives them a ride.

He wonders if Otabek gives a lot of people rides on his bike during the weeks on the college campus or during weekends when he’s not with Yuri.

He gives up on trying to get the sleeves to cover his hands and instead tugs on the scarf around his neck, pulling it tighter. The end of the scarf is tangled into the necklace he is wearing, and Yuri starts picking apart the mess of metal links and thin fabric as he walks.

Otabek has followed him quietly until now, all the way from where they left the bike in front of the diner. This diner is not the one off the highway that Yuri frequents with Mila, but another one closer to the city. Yuri has only been there a couple of times.

“I thought we were going to that diner,” Otabek says when Yuri jumps over a low fence across the street from the diner. “The one that’s that way.” He points in the direction where they came from.

“Well, I’m going this way,” Yuri says, pointing a finger. He doesn’t feel like sliding into a diner booth just yet. It’s early enough that people are still having dinner; he wants to go in when there’s barely anyone else around. Diners at night are one of Yuri’s favorite places. It’s quieter, the service is faster and he likes to watch the few people who are around and wonder why they are there at that time.

“What’s that way?” Otabek asks. “Besides a construction site.”

Yuri makes a vague motion with his hand. “I wanna see what’s on the other side.”

“More construction site,” Otabek says dryly. “Just from a different angle.”

“Well, you can fucking go back if you want to.” Yuri pokes his tongue out and nudges Otabek with his shoulder, not hard enough to make him fall but enough to make him stumble.

Otabek nudges him back. The brief touch feels warm against Yuri’s shoulder.

Yuri kicks pebbles ahead of him as they walk through the half-finished parking lot that’s still lacking its asphalt frosting.

Otabek is right, of course. On the other side of the construction site there is just more construction site. Only from a different angle.

Yuri sighs and sits down on a concrete barrier that’s placed there to prevent cars from driving to the site. Otabek hovers somewhere behind him and then steps into Yuri’s line of sight. “Yura, what’s up? What are you thinking about?”

Otabek asks that a lot. Yuri thinks it’s probably because he doesn’t offer information freely or express his thoughts without prompting. People ask that question so often in the hopes of discovering something new about the person next to them. Either that or they ask it out of habit; they don’t really care about the answer, but they ask because it’s the thing you are taught to do.

Otabek never asks anything out of habit or because he was taught to. He asks because he wants to know.

Yuri shrugs. “I don’t know.”

Otabek sits on the other end of the barrier, close but not close enough to touch Yuri.

He does that thing where he doesn’t ask anything more, but simply waits until Yuri says something else, other than his usual _‘I don’t know’_.

“I was thinking about the helmet you let me borrow,” Yuri eventually mutters.

Otabek looks confused. “What about it?”

“Do other people use it when you give them rides on your bike?” Yuri wraps the chain of his necklace around his finger and stares at the links going over the knuckle in neat rows.

“Sometimes.” Yuri sees from the corner of his eye that Otabek is looking at him. “But no one’s been riding the bike with me aside from you for weeks now.”

Yuri disentangles the necklace from his finger and lets it drop down to where it sways against his stomach. “Really? Not even on campus during the week?”

Otabek smiles and shakes his head. “No. I barely have time to ride the bike myself because of, you know, _studying_.”

Right. Studying takes time. Yuri purses his lips. “Anyway. I was just thinking.”

“The helmet is yours if you want to call it that,” Otabek says. His hand comes to rest on Yuri’s arm. “I’ve called it _Yuri’s helmet_ for weeks now anyway.”

“Have you?” Yuri turns to look Otabek properly.

Otabek snorts. “Yeah. Mom was confused when I came home last Friday and asked her where she had put _Yuri’s helmet_ , because it wasn’t on the counter in the garage where I’d left it.”

“So you don’t even bring it with you to campus, then,” Yuri mutters more to himself than to Otabek. He kind of likes the thought.

Otabek shakes his head. “No, I don’t.”

“Okay,” Yuri breathes. “Cool. Can I put a sticker on it? The helmet I mean?”

“Sure, Yura. If you want.” Otabek laughs and looks away. “But nothing obscene, okay? My mom would flip.”

Yuri grins. “Okay.”

Otabek gets up from the barrier and offers his hand to Yuri. Yuri grabs the hand and Otabek pulls him up. “Now can we get dinner? I’m starving.”

Yuri shrugs. “Sure.”

 

 

~

 

 

It’s rather scary how much a person is used to electricity. Yuri can’t tell for sure but he’s pretty convinced that he wakes up in the dead of the night because all of a sudden the even hum of the electrical machinery around him is gone. He wakes up to _silence_ ; complete and utter silence, and he pads through the ghastly house in complete darkness. The water bottle he takes from the fridge is still cool, though, so the power blackout can’t have been going on for very long.

When he drags the curtains up in his room he notices the street is equally dark; the entire neighborhood without a single dot of light. As he contemplates the lack of power, the air conditioner in his room suddenly clicks on and the tiny green spot of light appears in the corner of his computer screen on the table. There’s _noise_ again, the reassuring noise of electrical power coursing through the house, and he smiles in the darkness before switching the light on; and look, it works.

The following morning he wakes up staring at the water bottle he took out of the fridge during the blackout, and when he reaches out to grab his phone beside it there is a message from Otabek.

_> >hang out today?_

It’s Saturday, and tomorrow Otabek needs to go back to campus for five more days before he comes back for the summer and starts his job at the shop in the Hills.

_< <okay. come pick me up?_

_> >sure. 7 okay? need to get shit done in the garage before_

_< <works for me._

 

Gramps still starts grumbling every time he hears Otabek’s motorcycle pulling up the driveway.

“ _He’s going to get you both killed with that death machine_ ,” Gramps mutters when Yuri comes downstairs and heads for the door. Gramps has met Otabek and Otabek has promised to make sure he doesn’t kill Yuri, but Gramps still whines about it every time Otabek’s bike approaches. It’s become like a habit now.

“ _I’ll be fine_ ,” Yuri says.

He walks out of the house and pulls his leather gloves from his jacket pockets. He has a scarf around his neck and his hair is getting so long now that it’s tied into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. Leaving it down only messes it up under the helmet. Yuri has become a pro at riding in the back of Otabek’s bike by now.

Otabek smiles through the visor of his helmet. Yuri opens the compartment in the back that Otabek has finally gotten around to attaching to the bike. He takes out his helmet and pulls it on, clipping the fastening under his chin. There’s no fumbling anymore as he mounts the bike, one hand on Otabek’s shoulder for support.

They peel off the driveway at a speed that surely has Gramps shaking his head at them through the living room window, but Yuri loves the speed. Yuri leans into Otabek’s back so tightly he feels like he’s molding into the leather of Otabek’s jacket, and they are one with the bike as they accelerate through the suburb and toward the highway.

After they stop for coffee at the coffee shop that has become their regular place for coffee runs, Yuri sits on the edge of the curb in the parking lot with his iced latte and thinks about the conversation he had with Mila a while back. He wonders if he should bring it up. Not the part of him liking Otabek, but the part about Mila liking him. Who knows, maybe Otabek likes Mila back.

Yuri has a weird sensation, though, that Otabek knows about Mila’s feelings but he doesn’t reciprocate them.

Otabek seems to have an uncanny ability to ask questions at the right times. Or the wrong times, whichever way one wants to look at it. He does it now, fixing his eyes on Yuri.

“What are you thinking about?”

Yuri looks up from his latte to where Otabek is leaning onto his bike and sipping a similar latte; only his is vanilla and Yuri’s is caramel. Yuri wrinkles his brow at the question.

“I don’t know,” Yuri says, blinking against the rays of the setting sun.

Otabek stares at him, but it feels more like Otabek is staring _into_ him. “...Don’t know or don’t want to tell?”

Otabek seems to be reading him like an open book. It’s unnerving, because usually only Mila is able to do that.

“Both.” Yuri sips his latte through the straw. He pokes the ice around with his straw and contemplates on it for a while. “Mila likes you,” he then adds like an afterthought.

Otabek blinks, like this isn’t what he expected. “I know,” he replies.

“Do you like her back?” Yuri doesn’t look at Otabek. He looks at the asphalt before him; at the grass growing from the cracks of the curb he’s sitting on; at the overflowing trashcan beside the door of the coffee shop.

Otabek inhales and holds the breath for a moment. Yuri can hear him doing it. “No,” Otabek eventually says, letting the breath out. “No, I don’t like her back.”

Yuri feels lighter somehow. He looks at his hand, and it’s shaking. Why is it shaking?

“Yura, are you alright?” Otabek sounds concerned. He detaches from the bike and crouches in front of Yuri, lowering his iced latte on the asphalt. Yuri stares at Otabek’s knee as he’s crouching there, and then there is a hand on his shoulder. “Yura?”

Yuri shakes his head. “I’m okay,” he claims. The touch on his shoulder feels burning hot for some reason.

“Hey, so I wanted to show you something tonight,” Otabek says. “It’s this forest, a little past the Hills, and there’s this hill. It’s full of fireflies this time of year.”

“Fireflies?” Yuri repeats. “Sure, okay. Yeah.” Fireflies he can deal with.

When they drive off toward the setting sun, Yuri clings onto Otabek and presses his helmeted head against Otabek’s shoulder. The scenery goes by in flashes and the bike leans and accelerates under Otabek’s hands. Yuri can feel the gear shift coming before it actually happens, because the muscles in Otabek’s shoulder move, anticipating the flick of his wrist.

When Otabek navigates the bike through a small road that is more like a gravel path, Yuri detaches one hand from around Otabek’s waist and pushes his visor up. Their speed is so low at this point that there is barely any breeze on his face, but the scents of the surrounding forest hit him. The air smells like summer nights; of slightly damp moss and a plethora of floral scents.

Otabek parks the bike near where a path leads into the forest. Yuri dismounts the bike with ease and pulls the helmet off. His hair tie comes loose with the helmet, and he curses, looking for the tie in the ground around him. It’s the only one he has on him.

“What is it?” Otabek asks. He takes Yuri’s helmet and places it into the compartment while Yuri twirls around, looking for the hair tie in the darkening evening.

“Lost my hair tie,” Yuri explains and pushes a strand of hair off his face.

“Turn around,” Otabek says with a smile and Yuri complies. Otabek digs around Yuri’s hood and then fishes out the hair tie, handing it to Yuri. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.” Yuri puts the hair tie around his wrist. He can tie his hair back when they mount the bike again. He likes the feeling of his hair flowing free around his shoulders and covering his face partially. It makes for a good hiding place when he doesn’t want people to see his expressions.

It’s twilight when they enter the forest and make their way up the hill for a bit. The undergrowth and the ground are shaded in gloomy greys and dark greens. The path beneath Yuri’s feet is winding and uneven and he hesitates, placing his steps cautiously. Darkness falls suddenly, even during summertime.

“Only a few more minutes now.” Otabek’s voice is soft. Yuri stops, closes his eyes, listens. The even hum of the trees in the slight breeze surrounds him, pierced by the wailing sound of the mosquitoes buzzing around them like they’re a feast to be engulfed. Yuri slaps at them when he feels them touching down on his skin, but to no avail. Apparently, it’s worth a couple of mosquito bites and a possibly twisted ankle to see this, though. Or so Otabek keeps telling him. Yuri can still hear traffic from below where the highway dips into a valley, but here on the isolated hill it's calmer than down below; not as aggressive. He hears Otabek’s steps as they close in, and then there is a cautious hand lowered on his shoulder.

“Yura, look.”

Yuri opens his eyes and looks around him. The dance has begun. Dozens of tiny fluorescent green lights are twinkling all around him. They’re in the bushes, under the low-hanging leaves and on the moss, climbing up branches and grass, and he has to hold his breath. It's beautiful, the way they move completely out of sync but still seemingly in a harmony; these tiny blinking lights all around them. Yuri crouches down to examine one of the insects on a leaf right by his knee, and the slow-fading and re-emerging source of light is hypnotizing.

“How do you know all these places?” Yuri asks and looks up, awed. First the solitary gravel beach where the tidal cross-currents make the water foam, and now _this_. He looks around and the tiny dots dance all over the forest. In the fading light Otabek’s face is solemn and steady.

“I’ve been driving around a lot ever since I got my bike,” Otabek says in a tone that sounds like a shrug. “I don’t usually bring people with me, though.”

Yuri frowns. “But you brought me here.”

“So I did.” Otabek laughs softly. He’s quiet for a moment, and then says like an afterthought, “But that’s because I like you.”

The world stops, but the fireflies somehow keep dancing through it.

Yuri stares up from where he’s still crouched beside the leaf. Otabek is staring back at him, and it’s like that stupid staring contest again; only this time there is no competition. There is only Otabek and his steady eyes and a smile that looks somehow uncertain.

Yuri purses his lips. Otabek usually doesn’t look uncertain.

Yuri gets up from his crouched position slowly and steps closer. He extends a hand, and notices it’s shaking again. He brings his index finger up to Otabek’s cheek and traces down his jawline. There is a slight stubble on Otabek’s face, and Yuri skims his finger down and then up, against the growth of the hair. It’s smooth going in one direction and rough going in the other. Yuri smiles at the sensory input from the touch. Otabek swallows visibly and blinks.

“You blinked,” Yuri observes and lets out a shaky laugh.

“I wasn’t aware we were having a staring contest,” Otabek mutters.

“We’re not,” Yuri says. He steps one more step and he’s right in Otabek’s personal bubble. Otabek’s arms come around him, hugging him close, and Yuri exhales a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding. He presses his head into Otabek’s shoulder and hugs him tightly. It feels kind of weird to hug Otabek from the front like this, having been used to wrapping his arms around him from the back while riding the bike.

“I think I like you too,” Yuri whispers.

It’s the weirdest feeling, right in the pit of his stomach; kind of like a warmth that radiates out of his stomach, with the occasional little sting, like someone is tugging at his insides excitedly.

Otabek clears his throat. Yuri feels the vibration against his body. “Hey, we should go before it gets too dark to see where we’re going,” Otabek says.

Yuri detaches, and he expects it to be awkward. In all those movies he’s watched with Mila it’s always awkward when people confess their feelings, but to him it’s not. It’s just Otabek, watching him with his steady dark eyes.

Yuri smiles. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

He takes the hand Otabek offers him and they walk cautiously down the path to the bike awaiting below. Otabek doesn’t let go until they’re right next to the motorcycle.

On the ride home, Yuri holds his arms around Otabek and tries to feel his warmth through both their jackets. The leather of Otabek’s jacket squeaks whenever Yuri moves his arms. Yuri can only imagine the sound, though, because the helmet muffles the auditory signals from the outside world, and the sound of the bike and the wind rushing around them is enough to drown out anything that isn’t a police car siren.

They end up back at Yuri’s house, curled up on his twin bed and watching Inkheart, because it happened to be the first thing netflix suggested to them. They watch the screen and point out details of the movie to each other. Stupid stuff, continuity errors, awesome stuff.

Otabek is so close to Yuri on the bed that their arms touch occasionally. Every now when Yuri turns to say something he catches Otabek just staring at him, and then they look at each other; get caught in it. It’s like a staring contest but it’s not. Otabek’s eyes wander over Yuri’s face, and Yuri imagines he can feel the look on his skin even though he really can’t. His breath gets stuck in his throat.

Yuri is not an idiot. He knows where this is going.

It doesn’t make the weird feeling in his stomach go away, though. It’s like the warmth that sparked in his stomach earlier attracted some fireflies that are now dancing inside him, fluttering here and there.

The movie is very close to ending when Otabek lowers a hand on Yuri’s arm. When Yuri looks at him, Otabek’s eyes lock on his lips. Otabek grins slightly and asks quietly, “So should I kiss you now or what?”

Yuri swallows, and his eyes slide down to measure Otabek’s lips. There is a long stretch of silence, and then Yuri nods. “Yeah. I mean, might as well get it over and done with.”

Otabek lets out a low chuckle. He leans in, waits for a second, and then closes the distance between them. Yuri gasps at the soft press of Otabek’s lips against his. It’s a ghost of a touch, barely even there, but it makes the fireflies jitter vigorously inside Yuri. Otabek pulls back, and his hand searches Yuri’s, and that’s that.

They watch the rest of the movie curled up close to one another on the bed, hand in hand, and Yuri can’t stop smiling. It’s an odd feeling. He tries to frown at the TV screen, but it’s difficult. Like his mouth decided all on its own that it wants to smile all the time.

After the movie Otabek says he has to go home. He pushes a strand of hair off Yuri’s face and his fingertips skate over the skin of Yuri’s cheek.

The second kiss is longer, and afterwards Yuri feels like there isn’t enough oxygen in the room.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come hmu on [my tumblr](https://worldofcopperwings.tumblr.com/). Let’s be friends and talk about Otayuri and life. (Or how Otayuri _is_ life.)  
>  -  
> Endless thanks to my beta [thoughtsappear](http://thoughtsappear.tumblr.com/) who let me bounce ideas around and talk about my _feels_. Because trust me, I had _all the feels_ while writing this.


	2. two

“ _Yuratchka, come downstairs for a moment!_ ”

Yuri hears Gramps calling him from the living room, and he pushes his phone into his pocket. He pads down the stairs and into the living room. “ _Da, what is it?_ ”

“ _Remember when we talked about you getting a job for the summer?_ ” Gramps looks at him seriously.

Yuri nods. He applied to a few places but he didn’t get called in for interviews for any of them. He is aware that people aren’t going to hire someone who has zero experience and doesn’t cope well with people. Perhaps they can see such things from his applications.

“ _Well, I called an old friend, he runs a second-hand bookshop on Main Street off in Brooks. He said he could use an extra pair of hands for the summer and he promised to give you a chance for an interview. You should go in today and introduce yourself._ ” Gramps waves a slip of paper in his hands, and Yuri takes the paper after a moment’s hesitation.

The slip reads the name of the bookshop— _Yakov’s used books_ —and the address that’s in the next town over.

“ _How will I get to work, though?_ ” Yuri asks. “ _Don’t you need the car?_ ”

“ _I will manage_ ,” Gramps says. “ _This is a good opportunity, da?_ ”

“Yeah,” Yuri says, deep in thought.

He pushes the paper into his pocket and goes back to his room. He brushes his hair and stares at his reflection in the mirror. His hair is getting more sun-bleached as spring turns into summer. Yuri knows it will get nearly white toward the end of the summer, and then it darkens during the winter again. His hair reaches past his shoulders now, and Yuri pulls a strand to the side to see how long it is. He should get a haircut but he doesn’t like people touching his hair, so it’s just kept growing. Gramps pestered him about it for a while but he has given up by now.

Yuri ties his hair back into a ponytail and eyes his reflection again. Green eyes, eyebrows that are just a shade darker than his hair. His mouth forms a straight line unless he makes a conscious effort to look like he’s smiling. He usually doesn’t, but now Yuri tries to smile at his reflection. It feels fake, but if he wants to get a job he needs to please grandfather’s old friend Yakov, and people usually like it better when he smiles at them.

Yuri drives to the bookshop after school and parks his car down the street. He walks up to the store and pulls the door open. There is a tiny bell that chimes when the door moves, and Yuri stares at it until it stops moving. That noise will get old very fast if there are a lot of people coming into the store.

From the looks of it, that might not be a problem, as the store is currently completely empty aside from all the books.

“Can I help you?” an accented voice asks from the back of the store.

“I’m Yuri,” Yuri says and switches to Russian. “ _Yuri Plisetsky. My grandfather said he called you about a summer job._ ”

“ _Ah, da. Come over here, boy_.”

Yuri paces toward the register at the back of the store. The entire place is full of shelves and the shelves are full of books. There are piles of books on the floor beside the shelves and only a narrow path forms between them.

It looks like a fire hazard if Yuri’s ever seen one. He makes his way cautiously between the piles and stops in front of the old-fashioned cash register.

Yakov Feltsman looks slightly younger than Gramps and is obviously balding, even though he tries to cover it with a hat.

“Hi,” Yuri says. “ _Mr. Feltsman_ ,” he then adds, trying to be polite. He forces a little smile on his face.

They shake hands over the counter. Yuri tries to remember the instructions Gramps gave him. Not too tight, not too loose, but a firm shake that shows he has some backbone. Whatever that means.

“ _So this is the grandson of Nikolai Plisetsky_ ,” Yakov Feltsman mutters. “ _Alright, boy. Can you do math in your head?_ ”

Yuri nods. That he can do.

“ _If someone buys three books, one is two dollars, the second one is five dollars and the third one is eight dollars but it’s from the 50% off shelf, what’s the price for all of them?_ ”

“ _11 dollars. Plus tax if that’s added_.” Yuri frowns. This is elementary school stuff.

“Good,” Yakov Feltsman says in English. “ _How about a cash register, ever used one?_ ”

Yuri shakes his head. “ _No, but I can learn_.” It looks simple enough; an old-fashioned register in which the only replaceable part is the roll of receipt paper.

“ _Are you afraid of climbing up there to fetch books?_ ” Yakov Feltsman points up to where the shelves reach the ceiling. There is a rickety ladder leaning onto a shelf nearby.

“Nope,” Yuri says.

“ _Can you mop, vacuum, dust? Can you run to the corner store to get coffee?_ ”

“ _Da_.”

“ _Excellent. You’re hired_.”

Yuri stares at the stern-looking man in front of him. “Really?” he asks.

“ _Da. Mostly I need someone who can help around and run errands for me_. Not very difficult.”

Yuri nods.

“ _The salary is minimum plus extra for Saturdays. We’re closed Sunday and Monday so your work week is from Tuesday to Saturday, da?_ ”

Yuri nods again.

“ _Sometimes I don’t need you so you get days off or shorter days. If you need certain days off you need to tell me two weeks in advance_.”

It feels stupid to stand there and just nod, but what else is there to do?

“Okay,” Yuri says just to say something.

“ _Come back tomorrow and I’ll have a contract for you to sign_.”

“ _What about…customer service?_ ” Yuri asks cautiously. “ _Like, if there is a problem or something_.” He can tell people how much their books cost and use the register to check them out, but he is aware there are qualities employers want their employees in customer service to have. They want their customer service staff outgoing, at ease with people and able to read customers.

Yuri possesses none of these qualities.

Yakov barks out a short laugh. “ _People who come to buy used books are easy to deal with. They find a book they want, you take their money, give them the correct change and wish them a good day. If there is a problem, you call me, da?_ ”

Yuri lets out a sigh. That sounds doable.

When he walks out of the store and cringes at the chiming bell, Yuri pulls out his phone and texts Otabek.

_< <got a summer job_

_> >that’s awesome, where?_

_< <this secondhand bookstore. Gramps knows the owner._

_> >nice._

Getting a job for the summer is good, because it means Yuri gets money and something to put on his resume.

But it also means he has less time to hang out with Otabek.

Yuri walks to the car and sits down on the driver’s seat. Thinking about Otabek makes the fireflies dance in his stomach again.

He hasn’t seen Otabek since the kiss. Well, _kisses_ , because there were two of them.

Otabek is on campus right now and comes back in two days for the summer. He starts his job at the mechanic’s shop on Monday.

Well, at least they’ll still have Sundays, Yuri thinks. And perhaps some other days when Yakov doesn’t need him. And if Otabek has a day off from the shop.

That is a whole lot of ifs and buts, though. Yuri purses his lips and pushes the key in the ignition.

They’ll find time, right?

 

~

 

Otabek moves back from his campus dorm for the summer and Yuri helps him carry the boxes up into Otabek’s room. There aren’t that many of them, and it’s mostly just clothes and some books. When Yuri has put down the box he carried up the stairs, Otabek steps closer and inches an arm around Yuri’s waist. Yuri allows himself to be pulled close and slides his fingers down Otabek’s arm. Otabek always feels so warm under his touch, like he’s running a couple of degrees warmer than the rest of humanity.

“Hey,” Otabek says and pushes a strand of hair behind Yuri’s ear.

For some reason, Yuri doesn’t mind Otabek touching his hair. He leans into the touch and closes his eyes.

“Yura?”

Yuri’s eyes open and Otabek is right _there_ , his gaze going from Yuri’s eyes to his lips. Yuri opens his mouth, inhales, and then Otabek leans in.

Yuri feels like he’s choking, but in a good way. Otabek’s lips slide against his slowly, and Yuri moves his own against them. Otabek’s tongue darts out, licks across Yuri’s lower lip, and he remembers how it looked like when Otabek did it to win the staring contest; that deliberately seductive movement. Only now it’s done on Yuri’s mouth.

Yuri gasps at the sensation, and Otabek pulls back a fraction of an inch. His pupils are wide and his eyebrows knit close together. “Are you okay?”

Yuri swallows. “Beka,” he says and wants more of Otabek’s lips on his. Otabek seems to catch the unsaid plea, because his lips crash against Yuri’s again, soft and warm and many other things that Yuri doesn’t have words for right now.

There is that warmth in the pit of his stomach again, and it’s like someone opened the floodgates and let the fireflies roam free, because they’re inside him, fluttering nervously.

Otabek’s arm around Yuri’s waist tightens, pulls him closer. Yuri makes a surprised sound into the kiss when he feels Otabek pressing against him; feels the hard line of Otabek’s cock pressing into his thigh.

Yuri doesn’t know how he should feel about this.

It’s not as if he’s never thought about sex. He knows the basics, how stuff works and what goes where. But he’s never really thought about having sex with anyone. He jerks off sometimes, but it’s more out of physical necessity than anything else. Sure, it feels good and it helps him relax, but the thought of doing something like that with someone else…it’s never really occurred to him.

Or well, it has _occurred_ to him, of course, but he’s never felt particularly interested in sharing that part of himself with anyone.

Otabek seems to notice Yuri’s state of frozen uncertainty. He pulls back and looks at Yuri, swallowing.

“Sorry,” Otabek says in a hushed tone.

“No, it’s—“ Yuri trails off. “It’s just, I’ve never—“

Otabek pulls even farther back, creating a space of few inches between them. “Yura, there’s no rush. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

Yuri swallows. He wants to explain that it’s just that he’s never even thought about sex with anyone before, but that’s weird, right? People think about sex all the time, don’t they? At least if the books and movies are anything to go by. It’s weird to _not_ think about sex.

It’s weird to _not want_ sex. Right?

The moment is further disrupted by Otabek’s mother calling from downstairs, “Boys! I made some sandwiches for you, come down to the kitchen!”

They file down the stairs and Yuri feels awkward. He goes into the kitchen after Otabek, takes a sandwich and says thanks without looking at Otabek’s mother. He sits down at the table and nibbles on the sandwich, and when Otabek’s mother leaves the kitchen he quickly removes the slices of tomato and hides them into his napkin. He’s learned that people don’t like it if he picks off parts of food they’ve made for him. They think it makes him ungrateful or something.

Otabek is eyeing him from across the table, and as soon as his mother leaves the kitchen he pokes Yuri’s leg with his foot. “Yura, did I do something wrong?” His eyes are solemn and pleading.

Yuri is eternally grateful that Otabek knows by now that he needs to be direct with Yuri. Usually people mope around and drop hints and then get frustrated when he doesn’t catch them.

“No, Beka. You didn’t do anything wrong.” The follow-up explanation to the sentence refuses to come out of his mouth, though, so Yuri just shrugs and takes another bite of his sandwich.

“You will tell me if I do something wrong, right?” Otabek asks. “Because it’s so hard to tell with you sometimes.”

Yuri knows. He nods around the sandwich and smiles after swallowing. “I will tell you.” As soon as he figures out how.

Yuri usually doesn’t care about what people think of his behavior; or his _quirks_ as Gramps calls them. But he cares what Otabek thinks. He doesn’t want Otabek to think he’s weird.

Otabek probably already thinks he’s weird, but well, he doesn’t want Otabek to think he’s any _weirder_.

Otabek seems to like him, though, despite the weirdness. Yuri hides his smile into the sandwich.

Otabek’s foot nudges Yuri in the leg again. “Hey, you wanna go out, do something?”

It feels like he’s offered an escape. Yuri doesn’t know what he’s escaping from, though. He’s not afraid of being close to Otabek. He’s not _afraid_ of anything that might happen with Otabek. It’s just that he doesn’t know how he feels about it.

It might be helpful to figure it out before getting himself into anything where it’s difficult to back out. Yuri’s never been very good at talking his way out of things, and he doesn’t want to have to fumble through explanations with Otabek possibly sexually frustrated.

Yuri swallows a piece of sandwich. He knows sexual frustration is a thing. Overheard locker-room talk has made it clear that apparently guys can’t wait to get laid, and if it doesn’t happen as scheduled they stop trying and move on.

Otabek doesn’t seem like the type of guy who would do that, though. Yuri glances at Otabek from under his eyebrows and inserts the last of his sandwich into his mouth. But then again, one can never know with people. People are incomprehensible and unreliable. In fact, the only reliable fact about people might be that they _are_ unreliable in their actions and reactions.

“Where do you wanna go?” Yuri asks.

Otabek shrugs. “Anywhere. Everywhere.”

“That’s not really an answer,” Yuri points out.

“How about a walk in the park?” Otabek asks.

“Which one?”

“Any park,” Otabek says. “Pick one.”

Yuri has always liked the seaside fort and the park that surrounds it. Grandfather used to take him there when he was a child, but Yuri hasn’t been there in a while.

“How about the fort?” he asks.

Otabek wipes his mouth with his napkin. “The fort it is, then.”

It’s getting dark when they get to the fort. The fort park is closed for the night, but no one pays heed to the signs posted outside, and the gate is not really designed to keep anyone out. It’s one of those gates that is there to try to remind people that they should do the right thing and not pass the gate after hours, but people rarely do what’s right anyway. There is a row of cars in the parking lot where Otabek parks the bike, so they’re not the only ones here breaking the law.

They climb up the slight hill to the wall of the fort. Yuri sits on the small stone ledge surrounding the wall, and Otabek leans on it. The sky is like dark velvet and the clouds reflect crimson and orange from the city lights. As he concluded from the cars in the lot, they’re not the only ones in the park after dark. When Yuri closes his eyes he can hear the wind picking up pieces of conversations from other people passing nearby.

He opens his eyes and glances to his side where Otabek leans on the ledge and stares out at the ocean. Otabek looks good in his black leather jacket, with the collar up against the wind and the old stone wall of the fort spreading out as his background.

Yuri blinks at the thought. He rarely pays attention to people’s appearances. But he realizes that he likes the way Otabek looks. Likes the way his hair sweeps toward the back of his head at the crown; likes the way Otabek’s eyebrows are the defining feature of his expressions. They knit close together when he’s confused and lift high up when he’s surprised, and they rise just slightly when he smiles. Right now, his expression is neutral, relaxed, and Yuri finds himself staring at Otabek’s face.

Otabek looks at him from the corner of his eye. “What?”

“You look good,” Yuri blurts out without thinking. “I mean, I was just thinking that you look good.”

There’s the slight rise of the eyebrows when Otabek starts smiling, and his eyes squint just a little as his mouth spreads wide, revealing his teeth.

Yuri realizes he’s slowly learning to read Otabek; that he’s spent enough time with Otabek to start grasping the minuscule changes in his expressions. It’s a strange feeling, and Yuri wonders if it’s always like this for other people; reading expressions so easily.

Otabek detaches from the fort and steps closer to Yuri. His fingers brush a strand of hair behind Yuri’s ear, and Yuri leans into the touch. Otabek’s hand stays close after the movement, cups Yuri’s face.

“I think you look good, too,” Otabek says, and his voice is low and rough.

Yuri tilts his head when Otabek closes the distance between them, and kissing is starting to feel more natural. Otabek stands between Yuri’s legs where he’s sitting on the stony edge and his hand is cupping Yuri’s face and there is his tongue again, licking into Yuri’s mouth. The fireflies begin their dance in Yuri’s stomach, but it’s more muted now; not as anxious anymore.

Otabek pulls back suddenly, and Yuri startles at the loss of contact. “Yura.” Otabek’s voice is gentle. “If this ever gets to be too much, I need you to say it to me. Ask me to stop.”

Yuri nods, slightly out of breath.

“It’s just…you’re so damn hot, and sometimes I forget—“ Otabek trails off, shaking his head.

Yuri swallows. He has never thought himself as _hot_. But apparently Otabek does. The thought sends a gush of warmth down to the pit of his stomach.

Otabek steps back and offers Yuri his hand to pull him down from the edge. They walk down from the wall of the fort and to the few trees that surround the fort. Once they get to the trees, Yuri bounces from tree to tree and tries to jump at any branch that looks like it might be in reach. Otabek follows him in his leather jacket and smiles when Yuri finally finds a branch he can reach by jumping. Yuri hangs off the branch, his legs dangling a little bit above the ground and the sea wind tugging at the hem of his shirt.

When he drops down, Otabek steps close and asks, “Do you want a ride?” He points to his back, and Yuri grins. He jumps on Otabek’s back, and Otabek catches him by the thighs and carries him around the park.

“It’s a bit different than the usual ride,” Yuri says close to Otabek’s ear. “A bit slower, and no helmets.”

“Who are you calling slow?” Otabek asks with a laugh. “You try to run around with someone hanging off your back.”

“No, but this is good,” Yuri remarks. “No helmets. I like it.” Yuri leans in and inhales the scent of leather mixed with salty sea air. He likes that there is no helmet, because he feels like he’s encased in an aquarium when he wears it. Now he can feel the shorter hair of Otabek’s undercut brush against his face; he can feel the warmth radiate from Otabek’s neck when he presses close.

Otabek makes it to the shoreline before he drops Yuri and turns around so they’re face to face. The slight gushes of wind make Yuri’s hair float around his face, and Otabek uses both hands to push it off Yuri’s face before kissing him again.

Yuri never thought that kissing could be so addictive. He feels like he could stand here for hours, slightly out of breath and with Otabek’s mouth on his.

Eventually Otabek pulls back. “Do you wanna come over to my house for the night? Just to sleep, you know?”

Yuri frowns. “I thought your parents didn’t like overnight guests.”

Otabek grins. “They don’t. But I intend to smuggle you in.”

Yuri shrugs. “Okay.”

Yuri calls his grandfather before they leave the parking lot. “ _I’m going to sleep over at Otabek’s, is that okay?_ ”

“ _As long as you come home before noon, I need your help in the garden._ ”

“ _Da. Goodnight._ ”

Grandfather tends to say that Yuri is almost an adult, and as such he makes his own decisions, good or bad. Yuri doesn’t feel like an adult, but then again, how is it supposed to feel? Is he supposed to wake up one morning and _feel_ like an adult, or how does it work? But either way, Gramps doesn’t usually tell him no if he says he is sleeping over at a friend’s house. Well, not that he ever sleeps over anywhere but Mila’s, but still.

Otabek listens to the conversation although he probably doesn’t understand any of it.

Yuri ends the call and nods. “It’s fine. Gramps just needs me back before noon, he needs help in the garden.”

“Oh, I’ll probably have to kick you out before that,” Otabek says apologetically. “My parents can’t know you were in there.”

Yuri has never lied to his grandfather, so this sneaking around feels alien. But it’s none of his business how Otabek deals with his parents.

As they drive to Otabek’s house, Yuri stares at the streetlights flashing by. It feels like nights are their time; the darkness is their kingdom and the lack of light falls under their rule. They arrive at the house after Otabek’s parents are asleep and Otabek sneaks Yuri in through the garage. He reminds Yuri to watch out for the third step in the stairs, because it creaks when someone steps on it. Yuri skips the third step and makes his way into Otabek’s room.

Otabek closes the door and locks it just in case. He turns around and goes to the closet, shrugging his leather jacket onto a chair on his way. He pulls out pajamas from the closet and goes into the adjoined bathroom, leaving the closet door open.

For a moment, Yuri stands in the middle of the room and doesn’t know what to do, but then he takes off his jacket and peels off his jeans, leaving them in a pile on the floor on top of his shoes and socks. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror that’s on the inside of the door to Otabek’s closet. His hair is in a ponytail after the bike ride, so he tugs the hair tie loose and puts it around his wrist. His hair falls down around his face. His t-shirt is dark green and his boxers are plain black.

Yuri squints at his reflection. He’s not sure if this is what people would usually classify as hot.

But seemingly Otabek thinks he’s hot.

What makes a person hot? Objectively Yuri can say that some people are more attractive to him than others, but he can’t quite put his finger on what it is that makes them more attractive. Yuri steps closer to the mirror. His eyes trace the lines of his body. He lifts the hem of his shirt and watches as his stomach and sides move along with his breaths.

Yuri drops the shirt hem as the bathroom door is unlocked. He turns to face the bathroom door as Otabek steps out, dressed up in nothing but gray sweatpants.

Yuri glances at Otabek’s bare abdomen and then looks down, letting his hair fall to cover his face.

Otabek clears his throat. “I found an extra toothbrush for you, it’s on the counter,” Otabek says.

“Okay.” Yuri nods. He walks into the bathroom and shuts the door after him.

After using the toilet, Yuri brushes his teeth with the brand new toothbrush he tears out of the package. The bristles of the toothbrush are harder than the bristles of the toothbrush he has at home. They sting and dig into his gums. Yuri gags at the feeling and tries to brush more gently to make up for the harshness of the bristles.

He stares into the mirror and wonders what it would be like to run his fingers over Otabek’s skin, to trace the lines of his collarbones and his hipbones, visible above the low-riding sweatpants.

Yuri shakes his head and spits into the sink. He rinses the toothbrush and his mouth and then wonders where he should put the toothbrush. Eventually he just sticks it into the mug where another toothbrush already is standing.

The ceiling light is switched off and Otabek is already in bed under the covers as Yuri slinks out of the bathroom. A single light on the nightstand lights the bed and the floor beside it. Otabek’s bed is wide; plenty of room for both of them. Yuri grabs his phone from his pile of clothes and sets it on the nightstand next to Otabek’s. He slides under the covers and lies on his back, staring at the ceiling. Otabek shifts and reaches over Yuri to switch the light off.

It’s completely dark before Yuri’s eyes get used to the lack of light. The unfamiliar feeling of another person’s weight on the bed is slightly unsettling. Otabek shifts and moves and groans, while Yuri lies extremely still and breathes in shallow movements that barely make a sound.

Otabek stills. “Yura?”

“Hmm?” Yuri turns his head toward Otabek.

In the darkness he can just distinguish that Otabek’s eyes are open, but he can’t decipher the expression on his face.

“Are you looking forward to starting your job?” Otabek asks.

Yuri starts working on Tuesday, one day after Otabek starts his job at the mechanic’s shop.

Yuri shrugs, then realizes Otabek probably can’t see it. “I don’t know,” he says. “What about you?”

Otabek hums. “I’m kind of excited, kind of not.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s always nice to have money, but I’d rather spend the summer with you, no obligations.”

Yuri’s heart does a skip. “Yeah. Same.”

Otabek shifts closer. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

Otabek is so close that Yuri can feel his warmth against his shoulder. Yuri turns to his side, facing Otabek. Their faces are just inches apart. He bites the inside of his lip, wondering what happens if he just reaches out and—

Yuri’s hand snakes under the covers and encounters a lot of warm, bare skin. Otabek makes a small noise as Yuri’s fingers skate over his side and make their way to his collarbone, but he doesn’t move.

“Yura,” Otabek breathes.

Yuri realizes Otabek has been the one initiating kisses so far. He hesitates for a moment and then leans in.

Otabek lets out a surprised gasp when Yuri kisses him, and then his hand comes up to pull Yuri closer by the waist. The kiss feels like he’s drowning into Otabek’s warmth. Yuri licks at Otabek’s mouth experimentally, and Otabek lets out a moan.

Yuri stops breathing for a moment; stops moving his lips against Otabek’s. Everything comes to a standstill for a brief second.

Then Yuri does it again.

The sound that emerges from Otabek’s throat is raw, almost like a low growl. It sends sparks and shivers down Yuri’s spine. It makes heat pool low in his stomach.

Yuri stops and pulls back. In the dark he can’t see Otabek’s face properly, but he can hear the ragged breathing and he can feel the slight tremble in Otabek’s limbs. He’s also fairly sure that if he pushed just a tiny bit closer, he could feel Otabek hard against him. Yuri holds back, though, not sure how to process all this.

“Jesus,” Otabek mutters. He exhales a long breath.

Yuri laughs. “No, not Jesus.”

Otabek shoves him in the shoulder. “Ha. Funny.”

There is a momentary silence, and then Otabek says, “We should get some sleep. I still gotta smuggle you out of the house before my dad wakes up, and he’s a morning person if there ever was one.”

“Okay.”

There is a slight rustle of the covers and then Otabek’s hand strokes Yuri’s hair softly. “Goodnight, Yura.”

“Goodnight, Beka.”

Yuri wakes up before the alarm clock and lies there in the pale glow of the morning. Otabek is still sleeping. He’s on his stomach with one arm pushed under his pillow and his dark hair sticking messily in every direction on his pillow. Yuri strokes the strands of hair, and Otabek shifts but doesn’t wake up.

When the alarm goes off, Yuri snatches Otabek’s phone from the nightstand and dismisses the alarm before Otabek has even moved. “Beka,” he whispers. When there is no reply, Yuri leans in and whispers right into Otabek’s ear, “ _Beka_.”

There is something mumbled into the pillow.

“Beka, you need to get me home,” Yuri says.

After a little coaxing, Otabek wakes up and pads into the bathroom. Yuri is not sure if he should be worried, because Otabek is supposed to drive him home on the bike, and at the moment he looks like he could barely pour coffee into a mug without it turning into a disaster.

Otabek perks up when they sneak out of the house, though. He stops and actually lifts Yuri over the third step in the stairs, and Yuri wants to laugh, but they need to be quiet so he just bites into the back of his hand as Otabek lowers him on the floor.

Otabek squints at the teeth marks on Yuri’s hand as they step into the garage. “Whoa.”

Yuri shrugs. Sometimes he needs more sensory input than others to make the message go through. At other times, even a little bit can be too much. It can get frustrating at times.

“It doesn’t hurt,” he says.

Otabek walks the bike out of the garage and down the driveway. He only starts the engine when they are far down the street.

“But what do your parents say when you come home after you’ve dropped me off?” Yuri asks, fiddling with his helmet. “Aren’t you supposed to be in your bed?”

Otabek shakes his head. “No, they have these weird rules. I mean, I’m over eighteen, so they don’t really care if I spend the night somewhere else. So I can come home in the morning, no questions asked. But they don’t like me bringing people over to the house to stay the night.”

Yuri looks at him incredulously.

Otabek shrugs. “Yeah, like I said. Weird rules. There’s not much logic to them.”

Back home, Yuri walks into the kitchen and makes coffee. It’s so early that Gramps isn’t even awake yet, so Yuri goes to knock on his bedroom door softly. “ _Gramps? I made coffee_.”

“ _Why are you awake at this hour?_ ” he hears his grandfather grumble through the door.

“Long story,” Yuri mutters, deciding Gramps doesn’t need to know everything right away. “ _What do you need done in the garden?_ ”

 

 

~

 

Monday feels longer than it rationally should. Otabek is working from nine to five, and Yuri only starts his job the next day. He wakes up early and does chores for his grandfather, then he reads for a while and eventually he texts Mila to see if she’s home.

Mila comes to his rescue and they hang out for a bit before she goes in for her evening shift at the coffee shop. Mila has worked in the coffee shop every summer for three years and she also works there part-time during the school semester now that she’s attending college.

They drive Mila’s rickety car to the river and buy ice cream from the vendor in the riverside park.

“So you and Otabek,” Mila starts the conversation with the exact same words than their previous one about him and Otabek.

“What about me and Otabek?” Yuri asks and takes a spoonful of ice cream from his cup.

“Are you like, together now?”

Yuri shrugs. “I don’t know. We haven’t talked about it.”

“You’ve been hanging out with him for weeks now, though.” Mila swirls her spoon in the ice cream, mixing the flavors. Yuri wrinkles his nose at the sight. “Although I guess it’s just a label.”

Yuri nods. He hasn’t really thought about it, but it feels like Otabek is his boyfriend. He ponders about the idea of having a boyfriend. It feels good. Especially if it’s Otabek.

“If he treats you badly, let me know.” Mila looks at Yuri sternly.

Yuri laughs. “Why? So you can shake your tiny fists at him and scream?” Yuri’s hands are bigger than Mila’s these days, just like he is taller than Mila by several inches already.

Mila shoves him in the shoulder. “Hey, I’m trying to look out for you, the least you could do is appreciate it a little.”

“Sorry,” Yuri says with a grin.

“Besides, I’m pretty sure I could still lift you and turn you upside down if I wanted to.” Mila nods firmly and puts a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth.

Mila used to do that a lot when they were younger. She would grab Yuri by the waist and flip him upside down, just because she could. The first time she did it, Yuri threw up afterwards, but he asked her to do it again nonetheless. The feeling of being upside down, blood rushing into his head, was an exhilarating one.

Then at some point, Mila started doing it when Yuri annoyed her, just to _stop_ him from annoying her. So naturally, Yuri started annoying Mila all the time so he would get flipped upside down. Once Mila realized it was more of a reward than a punishment, she stopped. The last time she flipped Yuri upside down was the day they celebrated his sixteenth birthday. Mila declared he was getting too tall for her to flip anymore.

“Hey, but seriously. If you ever wanna talk or if there’s _anything_ , you know you can come to me,” Mila says, and the nudge she gives Yuri’s shoulder is a lot softer than the previous shove.

“I know,” Yuri says. “Thanks.”

Mila’s question doesn’t leave him alone, though. So that’s why when Otabek comes to pick him up after his first day at work, Yuri doesn’t put his helmet on right away. Instead he stares at Otabek’s face, or what’s visible of it through the visor of his helmet, until Otabek pulls the helmet off.

“What’s up?” Otabek asks. “There’s something bothering you, I can see it.”

Yuri stands with his helmet in his hands on the driveway of his house, and Otabek is straddling his bike and hanging his own helmet on one of the handles of the bike. Otabek cards his fingers through his hair so they settle in the wake of the helmet, and Yuri just stares at him. Otabek looks good. It’s like Yuri notices it all over again these days. Or maybe it’s like he’s more _aware_ of what Otabek looks like these days.

“It’s just something that Mila said,” Yuri mumbles. Then he frowns. Is he even supposed to talk about Otabek with Mila, though? But then again, who else would he talk to?

Otabek’s expression is neutral. “What did Mila say?”

“She asked if we’re, like, _together_?” Yuri squirms.

“What did you say to her?”

“That I don’t know, because we haven’t talked about it.”

Otabek dismounts the bike and sets it leaning on the stand. He turns to Yuri and smiles. “Well, if it quacks like a duck, swims like a duck and looks like a duck, it’s probably a duck,” he lists.

Yuri wrinkles his brow.

“To me this kind of looks like a relationship,” Otabek continues. “So I’d say it’s a relationship. What do you think?”

Yuri swallows, and there is a fluttering sensation in his stomach. Otabek does that lot these days; he awakens the fireflies. “Like boyfriends?” Yuri asks cautiously.

Otabek looks at him from the corner of his eye. “Yeah. If you want.”

“It’s a duck,” Yuri says firmly and Otabek smiles.

 

~

 

The first day working in the bookstore is overwhelming. There isn’t much to do, but it still feels like an information overload. The cash register is easy; it takes Yuri all of two minutes to figure it out. But then there are the customers. And according to Yakov, this day is _slow_. Yuri dreads the days that are not.

Currently, there are three people browsing the shelves. Yuri stands frozen behind the counter and waits for them to come to him to check out.

“Hey, can you help me get that book from the top shelf, please?” A woman is pointing up and looking at Yuri.

Yuri wades through the sea of books and grabs the ladder. He climbs up and fetches the book, handing it to the woman without a word.

She looks at him weirdly. “Thanks.”

Yuri makes a noncommittal noise and goes back to the register.

Yakov is in the back room dealing with bookkeeping, so Yuri is not really alone, but it’s still scary having people around that he needs to constantly pay attention to.

The bell above the door chimes once more, and Yuri cringes at the sound.

During lunch hour he hides in the back room instead of going out to get something to eat. There is a corner store nearby, but Yuri doesn’t feel like going anywhere where there’s people right now. He nibbles on a few dried-out cookies Yakov has in the back for coffee breaks and stares at an old poster on the breakroom wall.

He supposes it will get easier with time. Just like it got easier to go to school. The first day of school was torture to him. Too many people, noises he couldn’t shut out and demands placed on him on how he should talk, walk and behave. Yuri cried the entire night afterwards and said he was never going back.

But it got easier. Day after day, the people and the noise and everything got easier to bear.

This will get easier, too. He has to believe it will get easier, because otherwise he’s not going to survive the day.

When Yuri walks out of the store after his first day, he just wants to curl up into a ball and disappear. He sits into his car and lets out an exhale that feels like it goes on for minutes. Before starting the car, he sends a text to Otabek:

_< <i survived!_

Otabek replies with a string of thumbs-up emojis.

Yuri drives home and goes straight to the fridge. He makes himself a massive sandwich and sits down at the table while Gramps keeps asking him about his day.

“ _Da. It was exhausting. But I made it_ ,” Yuri says with a shrug.

Gramps looks at him and smiles. “ _I’m proud of you_ ,” he says.

Yuri swallows the piece of sandwich he was chewing. He looks at his grandfather, and realizes how much his grandfather must have worried about him over the years. In this moment he sees how it must have been for his grandfather.

He sees tiny Yuri, who was born too early and whose mother left when it became apparent that he wasn’t following the lines of typical development. His grandfather raised him, went through all those trying times when Yuri didn’t yet have the language to express himself and it frustrated him to no end. His grandfather was there to hold him through the temper tantrums and through the times when he couldn’t sleep because the blanket was too heavy.

He realizes that all these years his grandfather has been worried about what will become of Yuri when he grows up. How will he cope in a world that is designed for people who don’t get bothered by loud noises or crowds or food textures?

“ _I’ll be fine_ ,” Yuri says. He means the summer job, but he also means it in general.

Gramps places a warm hand on top of Yuri’s on the table like he understands. “ _I know you will_.”

The doorbell rings soon after, and Yuri cringes at the sound. Right now it reminds him of the bell at the bookstore too much. He goes to the open and sees Otabek through the screen door.

“Hey,” Yuri says and opens the door wide. He feels like he can’t stand to see any more people today, but he doesn’t mind seeing Otabek. “Come in.”

Otabek holds up a plastic bag. “Do you like watermelon?”

They chop up the entire melon in the kitchen and go out to the back porch to eat it.

“I’m counting days ‘til Saturday,” Yuri says with a sigh and bites into his slice of watermelon. “But I guess it will get easier with time. Right now it’s just…too much people and stuff.”

Otabek hums and chomps a huge bite off of his watermelon slice.

“Boys,” Gramps says through the screen door. “I need to go buy groceries, I’ll be back later.”

“ _Da_ ,” Yuri says. Otabek nods solemnly, his mouth full of watermelon.

Yuri hears the car leaving the driveway. He drops the piece of rind into the bag they brought for it and wipes his mouth. Eating watermelon always makes his face and his fingers sticky no matter how carefully he tries to eat.

Otabek shifts so they’re sitting side by side on the stairs. He nudges Yuri. “Watermelon kiss?”

Yuri laughs. “Okay,” he agrees.

The kiss is sticky and sweet like watermelon and warm and steady like Otabek.

Yuri licks watermelon juice from the corner of Otabek’s mouth and it earns him a gasp.

As the kiss deepens and Otabek’s fingers graze his cheek, Yuri can feel that same heat low in his stomach as the night he slept in Otabek’s bed. It’s tiny sparks in his abdomen, combined with a steady warmth that keeps spreading.

It takes Yuri embarrassingly long to realize what the sensation is. In fact, it only dawns on him like a lightbulb after the kiss has ended a long while ago. He’s never felt like this around anyone before, though, so it makes sense he doesn’t recognize it at first.

Yuri looks at Otabek eating watermelon out on the back porch of the house, and he realizes the sensation he’s felt around Otabek a few times now is almost like…desire. Wanting.

Lust.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come hmu on [my tumblr](https://worldofcopperwings.tumblr.com/). Let’s be friends and talk about Otayuri and life. (Or how Otayuri _is_ life.)  
>  Endless thanks to my beta [thoughtsappear](http://thoughtsappear.tumblr.com/) who let me bounce ideas around and talk about my _feels_. Because trust me, I had _all the feels_ while writing this.


	3. three

The following days at work are easier. Yuri learns to shut out some of the input, and some of it he just disables. Like the bell above the door.

After the tenth time or so, Yakov stops pulling out the crumpled pieces of toilet paper Yuri keeps shoving into the bell to keep it from chiming. Yuri starts greeting customers when they enter the store to give Yakov something in return.

His life becomes a routine. Yuri wakes up in the morning, drives to work, gets off work when Yakov says so or when the shop closes, drives home and waits for Otabek to roll around on his bike. On most days, Yuri is tired of people after the day, but he’s never tired of Otabek. It’s the same feeling as it has always been with Mila. He doesn’t have to pretend or cover up his behavior.

They go out at night when there aren’t other people around. Sometimes they drive to the 24-hour diner off the highway where they first met. Yuri used to think he doesn’t get sentimental over stuff that’s happened in the past, but when they roll across the parking lot of the diner, he feels oddly giddy inside.

Yuri leans onto the table and pokes the ice cubes around in the glass with his straw. The iced tea is icky sweet and sugary, almost too much so to be drinkable. The fluorescent lights of the diner are merciless, showing the signs of sleep deprivation on both their faces. But night is the only time they’ve got, because during days there are responsibilities.

Yuri sighs. _Responsibilities_. Like they’re adults or something.

Otabek stares at him across the table and Yuri feels a foot poking him in the leg. They get caught staring at each other, and it’s simultaneously exactly like the first time and nothing like the first time. Yuri smiles at the memory.

Overall, there’s the entire façade of pretending to be _adults_ in the daytime when they’re clearly not. At night, they drive around, go running and jumping on park benches, balance competitively on the concrete curbs of the diner parking lot and climb on the roots of lamp-posts everywhere. They are not adults, Yuri thinks. They are kids, and they fool around like ones in the dead of the night when they’ve shed adulthood off their bodies. Nights are their time and the darkness feels like home.

Yuri loves the way Otabek drives his motorcycle in the nighttime; the easy, sure way his hands steer the vehicle, the way he clicks the gear to make the bike zoom forward like they're escaping the ghost-form of reality. They go exploring and roaming the small side roads upstate at speeds that Yuri knows would kill them if there was even the slightest misinterpretation or err in judgment; only there isn’t. There’s just the exhilarating feeling of speed and freedom; of blood coursing through his veins. Otabek drives like he was born to accelerate across silent forest roads in the middle of the night when there's no one around but them. Them and the sleek form of a motorcycle moving at a speed that feels like they’re jumping lightyears at a time. Yuri holds his arms around Otabek’s waist tightly, clutches his own wrist across Otabek’s stomach and fears and adores the ride; loves the way the adrenaline makes his entire body thrum as if wired up on extremely high voltage. It’s like a different set of fireflies in his stomach; the best kind of sensory overload.

When Otabek pulls over at a gas station Yuri loosens his grip on Otabek, exhales, and then lets go with a smile. When the bike is standing on its own and they both have their feet steadily on the ground and their helmets off, he surges forward to kiss Otabek with all the energy the adrenaline has given him. The kiss feels hungry and too rushed and it leaves Yuri with a longing after they pull apart.

They drive back home across the dark landscape and Yuri watches the dark forms of forests flashing by as he clings onto Otabek. It’s one of those fleeting moments when he feels eternal and insignificant at the same time; it’s watching starry skies spreading over his head and feeling like he could fall into the dark velvet of all of space and time. It’s watching a single raindrop hanging off the edge of a leaf and then falling in slow-motion; it’s the knowledge that death is _this_ close to him at any given time, and that every inhale his lungs receive could be the last. It’s excitement and euphoria and the amazing feeling of being _alive_ , right here, right at this specific moment, in this spot and under these circumstances.

They sneak into Yuri’s house through the basement. Gramps probably wouldn’t say much even if he knew Otabek was staying the night, but Yuri doesn’t feel like explaining things in the middle of the night. He knows he’s going to tell Gramps about it in the morning or at dinner at the latest anyway.

Yuri’s bed is not as wide as Otabek’s, but they fit into it comfortably enough.

“Did you set the alarm?” Otabek asks after they’re under the covers.

“Yeah,” Yuri says, but he checks his phone anyway to make sure. Five and a half hours until they have to get up for work.

He switches off the lights and turns to Otabek, snuggling close. Like everything else with Otabek, it’s started to feel natural to sleep close to him. Otabek is lying in his back, and Yuri fits his body into Otabek’s form, molds against him like he’s melting into Otabek’s skin.

Yuri tilts his head and kisses Otabek in the jawline, feeling the stubble of beard under his lips. Otabek turns his head and catches Yuri’s lips with his. The kiss is nothing like the one at the gas station, when they were both strung up on adrenaline; no, this kiss is languid and slow and it keeps building up.

Then, as if someone switched gears, it gets needier, faster and dirtier. Their teeth click together at one point, and Otabek’s tongue licks against Yuri’s. Otabek’s hand strokes Yuri’s hair and his neck and moves down his back.

“Dammit, Yura,” Otabek says under his breath as he pulls back.

“Did I do something wrong?” Yuri asks, pulling away. He can’t see Otabek’s face in the dark, so it’s even more difficult than usual to try to decipher what’s going on.

Otabek huffs out a laugh. “No, it’s just—“

“This?” Yuri asks and brings a hand to touch the front of Otabek’s boxers. He feels Otabek’s cock straining the fabric and twitching against his hand.

The moan Otabek lets out is so loud that Yuri has to tell him to be quiet. There are things Gramps does not need to hear.

“Yura, fuck,” Otabek whispers. “What are you—?“

Yuri shifts a little and Otabek goes absolutely still. Yuri knows Otabek can feel Yuri’s cock hard against his hip.

Yuri shifts a little more, pushes against Otabek, and the pool of heat that’s been gathering in his stomach expands. Yuri can feel it spreading like flames in his body, to the tips of his fingers and toes. It’s different than masturbating, Yuri thinks through the haze. It’s not so much about the physical necessity, and more about _wanting_. Wanting to touch, wanting to feel, wanting to explore.

Yuri slides his fingers up the front of Otabek’s boxers. Otabek lets out a noise that sounds like a whine, and he buries his head into the crook of Yuri’s neck. Yuri gasps when Otabek’s lips latch onto his skin right below his ear, and he presses down with his hand without thinking.

Otabek bites him. Yuri is not sure if it’s accidental because his hand is pressing down on Otabek’s cock, but it makes Yuri feel like he’s on the verge of something. There is a crazy rush of adrenaline as his body struggles against the sensory overload from his abused nerve endings.

“Sorry,” Otabek mumbles into Yuri’s neck.

“No, it’s—“ Yuri presses against Otabek’s hip harder. “Do that again.”

There is a moment of hesitation, and then Otabek bites down again, lower at Yuri’s collarbone. Yuri moans and his hips move on their own accord, rut against Otabek while Yuri’s hand slides over Otabek’s cock.

“ _Yura_.” His name is whispered against his skin somewhere near his collarbone.

Otabek bites down on his collarbone for the third time, and Yuri pushes against Otabek’s hip and comes with a muffled sob.

It’s different from the usual release brought by his own hand. It’s more intense, more overwhelming. It’s like a weird explosion that rages over him and makes his head throb like he has a headache. Yuri freezes at the sensation and then relaxes, slumps down against Otabek while hearing his own blood rushing in his ears with a ringing sound.

Otabek licks over the skin he’s bitten, and Yuri has to whine, pull away. It’s too much right now. “Beka—“

Otabek pulls his lips away and Yuri can feel his eyes on him. Yuri exhales, then realizes his hand is on Otabek’s cock which is still hard. He moves his hand a bit, experimentally, and then feels Otabek’s hand joining his. Otabek pulls the waistband of the boxers down, and the skin of his cock is smooth and very hot against Yuri’s hand. Otabek’s hand closes around Yuri’s on his cock, and then moves them both up and down the shaft. The head of Otabek’s cock is a little bit wet and slick, and Otabek pushes his hips up against the movement of their hands. Yuri closes his eyes, concentrates on the feeling of warm skin under his fingers and the sound of Otabek’s breathing. He hears it first, the rapid outburst of air followed by a moan, and then Otabek’s cock pulses and spills over Yuri’s hand and Otabek’s stomach.

Afterwards it’s quiet for a moment, and then Otabek says, “Whoa.”

Yuri can kind of agree.

They clean up the mess and go to sleep with less than five hours until the alarm. Otabek pulls Yuri closer like he wants to get under Yuri’s skin and presses a kiss on Yuri’s forehead. It’s probably like an after-sex snuggle, Yuri thinks. Although does this count as sex? The messy kisses and rutting and his hand on Otabek’s cock?

Otabek falls asleep before Yuri does, and Yuri disentangles himself from Otabek’s grip. He shifts closer to the edge of the bed and lies there, breathing deeply.

He feels kind of overwhelmed and like his senses are working on overtime.

Yuri glances at Otabek’s sleeping form in the dimness of the night. He can see the outlines of Otabek’s body, and he wants to trace his finger over them until he knows them all.

Maybe later.

 

~

 

The day is a full-on disaster from the moment Yuri steps out of the front door. He’s tired, because no matter how young he is, less than five hours of sleep is not nearly enough, and his ears are ringing because of it. He’s also late, because Otabek took his sweet time shaving his face in Yuri’s bathroom, and then Yakov scolds him for being late. Yuri listens to the preach through the tinnitus-like high-pitched noise in his ears and tries to nod in the right places even though he can’t really concentrate on what Yakov is saying.

Later on, Yakov sends him out to get lunch for both of them, and Yuri has to stand in line at the nearby sandwich shop and mumble through not one, but _two_ orders. He’s pretty sure he gets something wrong, but if this is the case at least Yakov doesn’t say anything.

When Yuri gets home he has to stand trial in front of Gramps, who only raised an eyebrow in the morning when Otabek unexpectedly appeared in their kitchen with Yuri; but who now wants to hear what is going on. Yuri stammers through an explanation about his escapades over the past weeks, and in the end Gramps just hugs him and says that he’ll promptly fix his shotgun in case Otabek turns out to be a douchebag. That is exactly the reaction Yuri expected, but he still feels like his head is going to explode when the third-degree is done.

When Otabek drives his bike into the driveway, Yuri just tells him to drive somewhere, _anywhere_ , where there aren’t any fucking people, before pulling his helmet on and climbing on the back of the bike. He latches onto Otabek’s back and closes his eyes, concentrating on the sensory information from his touch receptors.

At some point he opens his eyes and watches the buildings and scenery pass by. Eventually Otabek pulls in at an old factory building that looks like it’s been abandoned for at least a decade. Yuri dismounts the bike and shoves his helmet into the compartment at the back, before walking around in a wide circle and kicking at the asphalt in frustration. Eventually he just walks up to a curb at the end of the parking area and sits down on the crumbling concrete.

Otabek follows him silently, and only when Yuri settles down he asks, “What’s wrong?”

Yuri spits on the ground and watches the disgusting foaming puddle as it leaks into the cracks in the asphalt.

“How does it feel to be normal?” Yuri asks, kicking at pebbles with his left foot.

Otabek looks conflicted. “I wouldn’t know. I mean, I guess I would know if one day I wasn’t. But having nothing to compare it to, I can’t really answer.”

“Well, you’ve been hanging out with me,” Yuri points out. “Compared to me, how does it feel to be normal?”

“Yura.” Otabek’s voice is stern but soft. “When you dig deep enough, nobody is what you would call _normal_. Everyone has something that sets them apart from the rest.”

Yuri scoffs. “I know that, but that’s still bullshit.”

“How come?”

“I know that we’re all fucking special snowflakes or whatever, but most people are similar enough to be categorized as the _norm_. It’s the bell curve. You take any random person in a crowd and test them on a bunch of things, it’s most likely they fall within the 95% of the population that’s considered normal.”

“So would you in most aspects,” Otabek says. “Just like me. In most aspects.”

“Hm. But with me there are more aspects that _don’t_ fall within the norm. And I actually have like a psychologist’s statement of that.” Yuri’s voice trembles when he says it. He doesn’t really go around advertising this stuff to people. “Poor social cognition, above the norm in spatial and mathematical thinking.”

In other words, a freak who can solve math equations but not people. A freak who gets overwhelmed by too much noise but can easily calculate the ratios of chemicals that are needed for a reaction.

He wonders if it makes Otabek look at him differently. Yuri looks down and his hair falls like a curtain, hiding him from the world. All he can see is a slice of asphalt in front of him and a veil of blond hair.

Two feet step into his field of vision, and Yuri flinches, doesn’t look up. He hears Otabek crouching and screws his eyes tightly shut. He doesn’t want to see if the look in Otabek’s eyes is different.

“Yura,” Otabek whispers.

“Don’t touch me,” Yuri says. “I can’t, not right now—“

There is a hesitating pause. “Okay, I won’t touch you. But can you look at me?”

Yuri opens his eyes and sees Otabek’s knee through the veil of his hair. Slowly, inch by inch, he moves his gaze up the crouched form in front of him. The familiar line of Otabek’s arm disappearing into a t-shirt sleeve, the sleeve adjoining the shirt at the shoulder. The neckline of the shirt shows a hint of collarbone, and Yuri follows its curve and then moves up the neck. He gets to the jawline and pushes some of the hair off his face. From the jaw up there’s Otabek’s mouth, then his nose, and finally…

Yuri swallows and looks Otabek in the eye.

There is nothing in his eyes that wasn’t there before.

“Was it too much…last night?” Otabek asks. His voice is cautious.

Yuri realizes that Otabek thinks this is because of him. He shakes his head. “It’s not that. No. It’s everything that’s happened _today_ , all the people at work and Gramps asking questions, and I'm tired and it’s just too much, and I’ve been a—a freak all my life, and—I—for once in my fucking life I’d like to be _normal_.” The last word gets nearly drowned by a muffled sob.

Otabek taps his chin thoughtfully and hums under his breath. The sound is soothing. “Yura, when was the psychologist’s evaluation done?”

“When I was five,” Yuri says.

Otabek’s eyes never leave his. It figures, if he’s the reigning champion of staring contests. “Do you think you’ve gotten any better with people since you were five?”

“Well of course, but—“ Yuri trails off. But what?

But nothing.

“Look, I’m no expert. I fix motorcycles in a shop and study engineering, but I would hazard a guess that you’re nothing like you were when you were five.”

“But I’m still not normal,” Yuri states. “I will never be _normal_. There is no cure for whatever _this_ is.” He can find the best coping mechanisms and learn to control himself and his reactions the best he can, but it will not make everything magically go away. He will never know just how easy normal people have it.

“What’s normal anyway?” Otabek asks. “A set of characteristics that apply to a certain percentage of the population. Who cares if you don’t fit into all of those characteristics?” Otabek’s eyes are serious.

Yuri shrugs and looks slightly past Otabek. “I do.”

Otabek purses his lips. “Well, I don’t.”

Yuri shrugs, letting his hair fall into his eyes again. He gets up from the curb and dusts his jeans. Otabek has followed his movement up from his crouch and he is now standing so close that Yuri can _feel_ him, but he still doesn’t look at Otabek.

“I asked Mila about you after we met for the first time in the diner,” Otabek says.

Yuri blinks. “What?”

Mila never said anything about that.

“Yeah. She said I should man the fuck up and ask you myself.” Otabek laughs.

“So you saw it, then, right away.” It’s not a question. Yuri knows that over the years he’s gotten better at acting normal in the outside world, but he can’t keep it up perfectly for long periods of time. Some of it will bleed through, and people tend to notice.

He wipes his cheek angrily.

Otabek frowns. “I get what you mean, but you misunderstand what I meant.”

Yuri glances at Otabek. “What did you mean, then?”

“Yura. I didn’t ask about your—your psych evaluation or whatever. I asked her if you were single and could you possibly be interested in me.”

Mila knew. The first time when she casually asked about him and Otabek and whether Yuri liked Otabek, she _knew_. Yuri feels mildly betrayed, because above everyone else, he trusts Mila to tell it like it is. She’s one of the only people in his life he trusts to do that.

“One fucking staring contest and I lost,” Otabek says quietly.

“But you didn’t lose,” Yuri points out.

Otabek lets out a short laugh. “This is going to sound sappy as all hell, but I _did_ lose. I stared into your eyes and I never found my way back.”

“Yeah, that is kind of sappy.” Yuri sniffles a little. “Or a lot sappy.”

Otabek huffs out a small laugh. “Will you kick me in the balls if I try to hug you?” he asks.

Yuri laughs, but it sounds more like a sob. “No.”

So Otabek hugs him. Yuri presses close with his eyes closed, listens to the sounds of traffic around them and a string of music from a passing car. His senses feel overstimulated from all the input, so he tries to close everything outside. Everything else but the feeling of Otabek’s heart beating against his own.

It doesn’t make the sensory overload go away completely, but it makes it easier to bear.

 

 

~

 

 

Yuri dislikes going to the mall, but Otabek asked him to go because he needs to buy new clothes, so here he is.

Buying new clothes is fine. Yuri likes new clothes.

What he doesn’t like are the mall lights, the ads pouring out of the PA system and flashing on almost every wall and the crowds of people everywhere.

When Otabek is in the fitting room in a clothing store, Yuri sits outside the rows of cubicles on a round cushioned bench and stares down at his phone. He’s absently picking at a thread that emerges from the seam of the cushions and playing a game of solitaire.

He used to play solitaire on the computer Gramps had when he was small. It’s soothing, the slow gameplay and the old-fashioned green background he’s chosen in the app settings.

“What about this one?” Otabek asks from his right and Yuri looks up.

“That one’s good,” Yuri says. “You look good.”

“I could be a cliché and say that you said the same thing about the last three, but I won’t,” Otabek deadpans.

Yuri spreads his hands in a gesture that says he doesn’t know what Otabek wants him to say. “Well, I like them all.”

Everything looks good on Otabek. Yuri is a little envious, because all clothes just seem to fit perfectly on Otabek, whereas on him they tend to be too loose or too short or too whatever.

Otabek sighs and goes back into the small cubicle, pulling the curtain shut after him.

After a moment he calls out, “Yura, come in here.”

Yuri lets go of the thread that’s now coming out of the seam at least two more inches than when he started picking at it. “What is it?” he asks and pushes his phone into his jacket pocket.

“Come in here,” Otabek repeats and Yuri slinks over to the curtain. He cracks it open just slightly so he can see inside.

Otabek looks at him through the mirror and motions him inside. Yuri steps into the small space and pulls the curtain shut.

“What?” he asks.

“This would look a lot better on you,” Otabek says and pushes a shirt at Yuri. “Try it on.”

Yuri looks at the shirt in his hands. He smooths a hand over the fabric and feels it. It’s soft and feels slightly cool under his fingers; some kind of fiber blend that makes the fabric smooth and velvety.

It’s a dark green t-shirt that has the black silhouette of a crouching tiger printed on the front hem. Yuri traces a finger over the print.

Otabek pulls off the shirt he was trying on, and Yuri gets momentarily distracted by the way the muscles in Otabek’s back move under his skin. Otabek quirks an eyebrow at him through the mirror. “C’mon, try it on,” he says, nudging Yuri with his elbow.

Yuri takes off his jacket and his shirt, and then he realizes they’re both shirtless in a dressing room of a mall clothing store. The clothing store background music is blaring from the PA system and the lights are bright, so Yuri locks eyes with Otabek through the mirror and concentrates on the way Otabek’s eyebrows rise just slightly as he smiles at Yuri.

Otabek turns around and faces Yuri. He takes the shirt Yuri is still holding and finds the neckline. Yuri rolls his eyes as Otabek pulls the shirt over his head. “You know I can dress myself, right?”

“You can? Really?” Otabek gasps mockingly.

“Ha.” Yuri tugs Otabek’s hands loose from the fabric and pushes his arms through the sleeves.

He glances at himself in the mirror. The shirt is a little loose but he likes the way it looks. The crouching tiger looks like it’s sneaking across the shirt hem, and the fabric feels smooth against his skin. Yuri pulls his hair out from under the neckline and watches as it settles on his shoulders in blond strands.

“You like it?” Otabek asks, and Yuri nods at him through the mirror. “Can I buy it for you?”

Yuri has his own money, but Otabek seems to like it when he gets to buy stuff for Yuri, so Yuri nods. He hopes the shirt isn’t too expensive, though.

Otabek pulls his own shirt on while Yuri takes the tiger shirt off and changes back into his old shirt.

Otabek grabs a pile of clothes and adds Yuri’s shirt to it. Another pile he leaves discarded on the chair in the dressing room.

Yuri stands a little to the side while Otabek goes to the register. He finds a tin of mints in his jacket pocket and inserts one into his mouth.

As they walk out of the store, Yuri asks, “Can we go now?”

Otabek looks at him pleadingly. “One more store? I really wanna go in there.” He points at a store almost directly across from the one they were just in.

Yuri pushes his hands into his jacket pockets. “Okay,” he agrees.

He follows Otabek to the store and walks quietly right behind him while Otabek browses through the clothing racks.

“Hey, Altin!” someone suddenly shouts from behind Yuri, and they both turn to look at the newcomer.

A tall, dark-haired guy approaches them in strides and stops in front of Otabek. Yuri takes a step back because the guy is right up in his personal space.

“Hey, Altin,” the guy repeats with a wide smile. “What’s up, man?”

“JJ, hey. Not much, what’s up with you?” Otabek says with a grin. They do a fist bump and a one-armed hug while Yuri studies the scene unfolding in front of him.

“Not much, not much, going back to college soon. What about you?”

“Same here, going back in a couple of weeks. Although I don’t have to fly across the country to go back to college like you do,” Otabek says.

The guy—JJ—shrugs. “Eh, it’s not so bad. I like the weather better in Cali.”

“Understandable.” Otabek nods.

JJ turns his attention to Yuri and his blue eyes feel piercing. Yuri swallows and looks slightly past him.

“And who’s this?” JJ smiles.

“This is Yuri. My boyfriend,” Otabek says.

JJ’s eyebrows rise at least an inch. “Oh,” he says. “ _Oh_. I see.” He offers a hand in Yuri’s direction. “Nice to meet you!”

Yuri takes the hand and shakes it, but he doesn’t say anything. For some reason JJ’s voice seems extremely loud. It takes all of his willpower to not grimace at the guy. Instead Yuri attempts a smile, but he’s not sure how successful it is.

Thankfully JJ’s attention moves back to Otabek, so Yuri can inch closer and cling onto the sleeve of Otabek’s leather jacket. The feeling of leather under his fingers is soothing, and Yuri rubs a finger over the cuff. Yuri looks down to the floor while Otabek and JJ talk about college majors and the differences in temperature here at home and in California.

JJ’s phone chimes and from the corner of his eye Yuri can see him checking it. “So anyway, I should go, Isabella is waiting for me in the food court. It was good to see you!”

“Alright, see you around,” Otabek says. “Have a good semester.”

“You too! And it was nice to meet you, eh, Yuri.”

Yuri nods at the floor. He can almost sense the weirded-out look aimed at him, but right now he can’t concentrate on much else than standing still under the bright lights.

When JJ has retreated out of hearing range, Yuri mutters, “Sorry.”

Otabek sighs. “For what?” he asks.

“For, you know.” Yuri makes a vague gesture with his hand. “Not handling that well.”

Otabek’s hand searches his. “It’s okay. Let’s just go now.”

Yuri follows Otabek out of the mall, feeling like a guy like Otabek would deserve someone who’s better at unexpected changes. Someone who is better at small talk. Someone who is generally just better at _people_.

“So that was JJ,” Otabek says as he hands Yuri his helmet and pushes the bags of clothing into the compartment at the back of the bike.

“From high school, so I gathered,” Yuri says and fidgets with the helmet.

“Yura, what’s up?” Otabek steps closer and hooks a finger under Yuri’s chin; makes him look up. “You look like something is bothering you.”

Yuri shrugs. “Don’t you think it would be easier for you if…if you had someone who was better at…you know, people?”

Otabek sighs. “It might be easier, but that doesn’t mean I want it.”

Yuri looks just slightly past Otabek’s face.

“Hey, Yura,” Otabek says, bringing Yuri’s eyes back to him. “When you choose a person, you don’t get to cherry-pick the characteristics they possess. I didn’t choose some socially capable butterfly who can smile at people at the right times. I chose _you_. All of you.”

Otabek leans in to kiss him, and Yuri smiles into the kiss. He can’t for the life of him understand _why_ Otabek chose him, though.

 

 

~

 

 

Yuri hasn’t slept a single night alone for the past week.

He’s lying on his back in his bed early on a Sunday morning when the thought comes to him. Yuri stretches and turns to look at Otabek, who is blinking sleepily on his left side.

“I haven’t slept a single night alone this week,” Yuri whispers matter-of-factly.

Otabek looks at him meaningfully. “I haven’t slept a single night in my own bed this week,” he replies.

Yuri breaks into a grin. “Point,” he says. “A very good point.”

Yuri grins and drags the blankets over both their heads, pulls Otabek close and breathes into his skin. “We should make a hideout here,” he whispers. “We could just stay in here forever, in this bed.”

Otabek grins; Yuri can feel it against the skin on his neck. “A fucking beautiful suicide.”

Yuri grimaces. “Well, not really. Have you ever seen photos of human remains after they’ve started decomposing?”

Otabek groans into his neck. “No, but I’m guessing you have.”

“And can you imagine the _smell_ if we both died on this bed?” Yuri wrinkles his nose. “They say that once you have smelled a decomposing body you can never get the smell out of your head.”

Otabek shakes his head and laughs. “Trying to be romantic with you is like sweet-talking a rock wall.”

Yuri pulls back so he can see Otabek’s face in the dim light under the covers. “You’re the one who’s romanticizing suicide, here.”

Otabek sighs playfully. “Yeah, my bad.”

Yuri smiles. “For the record, I understood what you meant. I was just teasing you.”

Otabek pushes the covers aside in a flash and then climbs to sit on top of Yuri. “Were you now?” He leans down to kiss Yuri, and then nibbles his way down Yuri’s neck. He keeps biting and running his fingers down Yuri’s sides until Yuri is squirming and laughing and begging for him to stop tickling. Otabek’s teeth are on his neck and Otabek’s fingers are everywhere and Yuri can’t breathe from all the laughing.

Downstairs, Gramps bangs loudly on something, and Yuri hears a shouted, “ _Since you are awake you can help me carry the groceries in, da?_ ”

They pull apart and Yuri translates: “Gramps needs help with groceries.”

They get dressed and stomp downstairs. “Morning, Gramps,” Yuri says as they pass through the kitchen and out to the driveway where the car is waiting with the trunk open and full of plastic bags.

“Morning, Sir,” Otabek mumbles as he skulks out after Yuri.

Yuri thinks Otabek is taking the story about Gramps fixing his shotgun way too seriously.

The late August sun has burned the front lawn into shades of brownish green. The days are stifling hot but the at night the air already brings with it a promise of fall.

Yuri tries not to think about it too much.

They carry the groceries inside and Yuri puts them away in the fridge and the cupboards while Otabek makes them coffee.

“I need to go home today,” Otabek says after checking his phone.

Yuri stops and glances over his shoulder. “Alright.” He scratches the back of his neck absently.

“For the night. Mom’s asking if I’ve moved in here, like in a way that hints that I should come home every now and then.” Otabek sighs and crosses the kitchen floor. “Come with me?”

Yuri thinks about it. “Do we need to sneak around?”

“No. Not anymore.” Otabek’s hand comes to rest on the small of Yuri’s back.

“Okay,” Yuri says. “But I need to bring my own toothbrush. The one you gave me has bristles that are too hard.”

Otabek blinks. “What, you were the most opposed to the _toothbrush_ I gave you?”

Yuri shrugs.

“Okay, bring your own toothbrush. Oh, and we might have to do dinner with my parents,” Otabek says in a voice that is apologetic.

Yuri grimaces. “Do I have to?”

“No. But if you can, I’d like that. My mom would like that, too.”

Yuri has a feeling that Otabek’s mother doesn’t like him very much. He doesn’t know if it is due to the fact that he’s a guy or due to the fact that he doesn’t exactly fit into any stereotypical category of normalcy.

He can put on his mask for a short while, though. For Otabek.

Around noon they take the bike to the rocky shore where the tidal cross-currents make the water swirl and foam, and Yuri tosses pebbles into the water and watches them vanish. There is a lonely tugboat that passes through close to the shore, and Yuri watches it fighting against the currents and eventually disappear behind a bend in the shoreline. Otabek is a bit down the rocky beach, searching for a perfectly round pebble.

When he finally finds one, he brings it to Yuri and puts it on his palm. “Look, Yura.”

Yuri feels the smooth stone on his palm. All sharp edges have been buffed out by the relentless waves crashing into the shore, and now the stone is smooth and uniform on all sides.

Yuri feels like he can relate to the stone. In the beginning it was rough and uneven, but time and nature’s efforts have molded it into something smoother. It now looks more like all the other pebbles on the shore.

Yuri knows he’ll never be as smooth as this one pebble, but he can at least try to find the best ways to cope with the fact that he’s always going to be a little rough around the edges. A little different.

But perhaps it doesn’t make him worse than any other pebble on the beach.

Yuri smiles at the tiny piece of rock in his hand, then looks at Otabek. “Can I keep it?”

“It’s yours,” Otabek says.

Yuri pockets the pebble and comes across the same tin of mints he’s had in his jacket pocket for a while. He absently takes one and puts it in his mouth.

“Can I have a mint, Yura?” Otabek steps closer.

Yuri offers the tin to Otabek, but Otabek grins mischievously and says, “No, I want _that_ one,” nodding towards Yuri’s lips. Yuri opens his mouth to reply, and Otabek takes advantage of that to steal the mint from his mouth with a kiss that’s rough and gentle and teasing at the same time. Yuri’s hair flaps around them in the never-ending sea breeze, and the kiss tastes like peppermint and Otabek.

“Thief,” Yuri mutters when they pull apart and he has to dig a new mint for himself from the tin.

Otabek raises one eyebrow and looks smug.

Yuri puts a new mint into his mouth and marvels at the fact that he is able to decipher that; recognize when Otabek is teasing him, when he’s mischievous, when he’s smug.

It’s taken a lot of trial and error to get there, though. Yuri sometimes thinks Otabek has to have infinite patience to be able to stand Yuri just as he is.

But then again, he has watched Otabek lose his nerve when Mila beat him at Mario Kart just a few days earlier, so maybe he doesn’t have infinite patience in _general_.

Maybe it’s something he just has with Yuri.

They drive back to Otabek’s house at dinnertime and Yuri inhales before he enters the house and feels like he can only exhale when they finally leave the dinner table. He sits through dinner and eats most of what he is offered. He answers questions in the way he thinks most people would do. He smiles and tries to look Otabek’s mother in the eyes when she speaks to him.

Otabek holds his hand under the table and it’s the only thing that gets Yuri through dinner.

They leave the house after dinner with a promise to come back for the night. Yuri doesn’t look at Otabek’s mother when Otabek tells her that Yuri is coming too, or if that isn’t okay, they can always go back to Yuri’s.

Yuri doesn’t argue with Otabek’s methods of blackmail, though. He’s just as addicted to sleeping next to Otabek as Otabek seemingly is addicted to sleeping next to him.

They drive the bike to the small pier just south of the fort. They walk the length of the pier and there is no one else around. Perhaps it’s because there is a promise of rain in the cooling night air, but Yuri doesn’t care. He can easily stand a little rain with Otabek.

“What are you thinking about?” Otabek asks.

Yuri smiles inwardly; there’s that familiar question again. Yuri leans back against the railing of the pier, plants his elbows on it so his back is turned to the sea. Otabek doesn't wait for permission; he steps right into the bubble of personal space everyone always likes to think they possess, and he repeats the question against Yuri’s mouth.

“Time,” Yuri says, and Otabek seems to catch the mood, because he sighs.

“Time,” Otabek repeats, and there is a sad undertone to the word.

They don’t have much time left.

The flames of the setting sun color the world into all shades of purple and orange, and they watch the light vanishing behind the horizon as clouds gather overhead. The sun’s disappearing act happens fast, so fast that it makes Yuri laugh; how can it disappear so quickly? The ocean and the skyline burn with colors for a bit longer, and they stare out at the water, hugging each other close to shield from the wind.

“I’ll be here all the weekends, though.” Otabek’s finger traces Yuri’s jawline softly.

“Yeah, it’s not the same though.” Yuri purses his lips. It’s not the same than having Otabek sleep next to him almost every night, it’s not the same than seeing him every day after work. When the semester starts, Yuri can’t just call him and ask if they can hang out on an hour’s notice. His stomach twists anxiously at the thought.

“In a year you’ll come join me, I’m sure,” Otabek muses. “Then we can get a dorm room together.”

Yuri thinks about it. It’s possible, with his grades, to get into the same college than Otabek. And if not, there are other options in the same city.

That night, there is a sense of desperation and urgency in the kisses they share on Otabek’s bed. They whisper to each other in hushed voices and Yuri has to bite down on the back of his hand when Otabek’s hand slides down his stomach and into his boxers.

In the end, Otabek bites down on Yuri’s neck, Yuri bites down on his hand to keep quiet, their hands are around each other’s cocks and it all ends up in a wonderful mess all over the bed.

Afterwards when they’ve cleaned up and lie back down, Yuri traces his finger down Otabek’s stomach and dips his fingertip in the hollow beside Otabek’s jutting hipbone. His finger skates around and comes up along Otabek’s side and then follows the curve of Otabek’s collarbone to his neck. Otabek remains still and watches Yuri with dark eyes.

Yuri still has no idea what it is that makes Otabek so irresistibly hot in his eyes; nor has he any idea as to why he himself is so irresistibly hot in Otabek’s eyes, but all in all it works well together. He pushes a strand of hair behind his ear, leans onto his elbow and stares at Otabek in the dim room.

It’s a long moment of just them staring at each other. Then Yuri smiles and buries his head into the curve where Otabek’s shoulder meets his neck.

He can just hear the muttered, “Still the reigning champion.”

“Jesus, Beka,” Yuri groans into Otabek’s shoulder. “Besides I thought we agreed you lost to me on the first time.”

“I didn’t say I lost to you, I said I lost myself in your eyes.”

Yuri will never get used to Otabek’s romantic side. It always seems to jump at him from behind the corner and it completely reduces him into a blushing idiot. He keeps his head buried where it rests against Otabek’s neck and breathes in the scent of Otabek’s skin.

Little by little the breaths beneath him slow down and become deeper. Yuri listens to Otabek falling asleep and smiles against his skin.

 

 

~

 

 

Otabek parks the bike on the same spot beside the hill. Yuri climbs off and shivers a little at the slight chill in the air.

The sun is setting as they walk up the hill. Otabek’s hand is warm in Yuri’s and Yuri has one of Otabek’s scarves wrapped tightly around his neck. It smells like Otabek, and Yuri tugs the scarf up every now and then to inhale the scent.

The forest looks different now. In the spring everything was budding and fresh and green, and now it’s all shades of dulled green and burnt orange. The wind whispers in the trees, and the leaves rustle like they’re waiting to fall on the moss floor. It feels like it was in another lifetime when they last climbed up this same path.

“I’m not sure if we’ll actually see any,” Otabek says when they stop in the bend of the path midway up the hill. “It might be too late in the summer for that.”

Yuri doesn’t really care about seeing fireflies. He cares about spending all the time they have left with Otabek before the semester starts. He steps into Otabek’s personal bubble and hugs him close. Their leather jackets squeak against each other and in the quiet forest the sound is kind of funny. Yuri smiles into Otabek’s shoulder.

Yuri feels like he’s grown over the summer, because he has to crouch down a little to be able to rest his head on Otabek’s shoulder these days. “I’ll be taller than you soon,” Yuri mumbles.

Otabek strokes his hair and presses a soft kiss into it. “I’ll still give you piggyback rides, don’t worry,” he says and it sounds like he’s smiling.

Yuri lifts his head when Otabek nudges him. “Look.”

There are fewer of the twinkling lights than there were the last time they were here. They blink into existence around them, few and far between, but they’re there. There is a weird sense of finality in their movements. Their dance is calmer, less anxious, and Yuri smiles at them. Just like the fireflies inside him that at first were many and anxious, these ones are slowly withering away.

Soon they’ll vanish altogether.

Yuri looks at Otabek, who responds to his gaze with steady eyes. There is still that slight fluttery feeling in Yuri’s stomach that’s always there when Otabek looks at him, and he doubts it will ever disappear completely.

They watch the slow-blinking lights, pressed close to one another, and leave only when Otabek claims that even in the dark he can see Yuri’s lips turning blue. Yuri slides a finger across his lower lip. It doesn’t feel blue. But then again, what do colors feel like?

He ponders it all the way down the hill. Black is sadness. Gray is dull days and uninteresting things. White is too bright and clinical. Brown is the taste of bitter chocolate and the way Otabek’s eyes look when the sun hits them just right. Green is this forest and all the scents and sounds it holds. Pink is sticky watermelon kisses on the back porch of his house.

“What are you thinking about?” Otabek asks when they get to the bike.

“I’m associating colors with feelings and things,” Yuri says absently.

Otabek hands Yuri his helmet, with the cat face sticker at the back. “Okay?” he asks. “Like how?”

Yuri explains it to him, although he’s not sure if comes out right.

Otabek shakes his head when Yuri mentions green. “No. Green is your eyes right before you kiss me.”

Yuri looks down, then up at Otabek through his lashes. “Like this?”

Otabek steps closer and cups Yuri’s chin with his hand. “Yeah. Like that.” He presses his lips tenderly on Yuri’s.

They drive around the dark side roads and Yuri tries to memorize how it feels to cling onto Otabek’s waist with their leather jackets scraping against each other.

Afterward they sit at the 24-hour diner off the highway and stare at each other over the table. Otabek’s hand never leaves Yuri’s just like his eyes never leave Yuri’s; and Yuri keeps swallowing something in his throat that feels like it’s strangling him.

“Yura, I’ll see you in five days.”

Five days. It’s not that long. But it feels like an eternity when he hasn’t slept a single night alone in weeks.

“And I’ll call and text every day, okay?”

Yuri nods. He wipes his cheek with his free hand and then nods again.

“Yura. I love you.”

Yuri chokes on thin air and the fireflies that have all but vanished since the beginning of the summer come back with a vengeance. They explode in his insides and flutter between Yuri’s ribs. His chest feels like it’s too small all of a sudden, like it can’t possibly hold all the things happening inside.

Otabek waits, and when Yuri finally exhales and his lungs somehow don’t explode, Otabek reaches his free hand across the table to brush a strand of hair behind Yuri’s ear.

“I love you,” Otabek repeats softly.

Five days. Yuri thinks he can just about survive five days with that.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that was it. Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please leave a comment if you liked this; comments make my day! ♥  
> -  
> Come hmu on [my tumblr](https://worldofcopperwings.tumblr.com/). Let’s be friends and talk about Otayuri and life. (Or how Otayuri _is_ life.) Also, my ask box is always open and I take drabble requests, for this verse and all others.  
>  -  
> Endless thanks to my wonderful beta [thoughtsappear](http://thoughtsappear.tumblr.com/) who corrected my typos and also virtually held my hand and encouraged me throughout this. ♥


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